GOLD 


©Y 
BRAND 

WHITLOCK 


THE  GOLD  BRICK 


THE  GOLD  BRICK 


By 
BRAND  WHITLOCK 


Author  of 

THE  THIRTEENTH  DISTRICT 

HER  INFINITE  VARIETY        THE  HAPPY  AVERAGE 
THE  TURN  OF  THE  BALANCE 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT  1910 
THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 


PRESS  OF 

BRAUNWORTH  &  CO. 

BOOKBINDERS  AND  PRINTERS 

BROOKLYN,  N.  Y. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I    THE  GOLD  BRICK i 

II    THE  HAS-BEEN          .  35 

III  WHAT  WILL  BECOME  OF  ANNIE?   .        .  .65 

IV  THE  VINDICATION  OF  HENDERSON  OF  GREENE    .      89 
V  SENATE  BILL  578        .        .       ,       .       .       .       .119 

VI  MACOCHEE'S  FIRST  CAMPAIGN  FUND     .       .        .    139 

VII    A  SECRET  OF  STATE 165 

VIII  THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN     ....    201 

IX    REFORM  IN  THE  FIRST 232 

X    MALACHI  NOLAN 262 

XI  THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN        .       .       .    302 

XII    THAT  BOY  333 


The  stories  in  this  book  were  originally  published 
in  The  Saturday  Evening  Post,  The  American 
Magazine  and  Ainslee's  Magazine,  and  to  these 
publications  acknowledgments  are  due  for  their 
courtesy  in  giving  permission  for  republication. 


THE  GOLD  BRICK 


THE  GOLD  BRICK 

TEN  thousand  dollars  a  year !  Neil  Kittrell  left 
the  office  of  the  Morning  Telegraph  in  a  daze. 
He  was  insensible  of  the  raw  February  air,  heedless 
of  sloppy  pavements;  the  gray  day  had  suddenly 
turned  gold.  He  could  not  realize  it  all  at  once ;  ten 
thousand  a  year — for  him  and  Edith!  His  heart 
swelled  with  love  of  Edith;  she  had  sacrificed  so 
much  to  become  the  wife  of  a  man  who  had  tried  to 
make  an  artist  of  himself,  and  of  whom  fate,  or  eco- 
nomic determinism,  or  something,  had  made  a  car- 
toonist. What  a  surprise  for  her!  He  must  hurry 
home. 

In  this  swelling  of  his  heart  he  felt  a  love  not  only 
of  Edith  but  of  the  whole  world.  The  people  he  met 
seemed  dear  to  him ;  he  felt  friendly  with  every  one, 
and  beamed  on  perfect  strangers  with  broad,  cheer- 
ful smiles.  He  stopped  to  buy  some  flowers  for  Edith 

i 


2  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

— daffodils,  or  tulips,  which  promised  spring,  and  he 
took  the  daffodils,  because  the  girl  said : 

"I  think  yellow  is  such  a  spirituelle  color,  don't 
you  ?"  and  inclined  her  head  in  a  most  artistic  man- 
ner. 

But  daffodils,  after  all,  which  would  have  been 
much  the  day  before,  seemed  insufficient  in  the  light 
of  new  prosperity,  and  Kittrell  bought  a  large  azalea, 
beautiful  in  its  graceful  spread  of  pink  blooms. 

"Where  shall  I  send  it?"  asked  the  girl,  whose 
cheeks  were  as  pink  as  azaleas  themselves. 

"I  think  I'll  call  a  cab  and  take  it  to  her  myself," 
said  Kittrell. 

And  she  sighed  over  the  romance  of  this  rich 
young  gentleman  and  the  girl  of  the  azalea,  who,  no 
doubt,  was  as  beautiful  as  the  young  woman  who 
was  playing  Lottie,  the  Poor  Saleslady  at  the  Lyceum 
that  very  week. 

Kittrell  and  the  azalea  bowled  along  Claybourne 
Avenue ;  he  leaned  back  on  the  cushions,  and  adopted 
the  expression  of  ennui  appropriate  to  that  thor- 
oughfare. Would  Edith  now  prefer  Claybourne 
Avenue  ?  With  ten  thousand  a  year  they  could,  per- 
haps— and  yet,  at  first  it  would  be  best  not  to  put  on 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  3 

airs,  but  to  go  right  on  as  they  were,  in  the  flat. 
Then  the  thought  came  to  him  that  now,  as  the  car- 
toonist on  the  Telegraph,  his  name  would  become  as 
well  known  in  Claybourne  Avenue  as  it  had  been  in 
the  homes  of  the  poor  and  humble  during  his  years 
on  the  Post.  And  his  thoughts  flew  to  those  homes 
where  tired  men  at  evening  looked  for  his  cartoons 
and  children  laughed  at  his  funny  pictures.  It  gave 
him  a  pang;  he  had  felt  a  subtle  bond  between  him- 
self and  all  those  thousands  who  read  the  Post.  It 
was  hard  to  leave  them.  The  Post  might  be  yellow, 
but,  as  the  girl  had  said,  yellow  was  a  spiritual  color, 
and  the  Post  brought  something  into  their  lives — 
lives  that  were  scorned  by  the  Telegraph  and  by 
these  people  on  the  avenue.  Could  he  make  new 
friends  here,  where  the  cartoons  he  drew  and  the 
Post  that  printed  them  had  been  contemned,  if  not 
despised  ?  His  mind  flew  back  to  the  dingy  office  of 
the  Post;  to  the  boys  there,  the  whole  good-natured, 
happy-go-lucky  gang ;  and  to  Hardy — ah,  Hardy ! — 
who  had  been  so  good  to  him,  and  given  him  his  big 
chance,  had  taken  such  pains  and  interest,  helping 
him  with  ideas  and  suggestions,  criticism  and  sym- 
pathy. To  tell  Hardy  that  he  was  going  to  leave 


4  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

him,  here  on  the  eve  of  the  campaign — and  Clayton, 
the  mayor,  he  would  have  to  tell  him,  too — oh,  the 
devil !  Why  must  he  think  of  these  things  now? 

After  all,  when  he  had  reached  home,  and  had  run 
up-stairs  with  the  news  and  the  azalea,  Edith  did  not 
seem  delighted. 

"But,  dearie,  business  is  business,"  he  argued, 
"and  we  need  the  money!" 

"Yes,  I  know ;  doubtless  you're  right.  Only  please 
don't  say  'business  is  business;'  it  isn't  like  you, 
and—" 

"But  think  what  it  will  mean — ten  thousand  a 
year!" 

"Oh,  Neil,  I've  lived  on  ten  thousand  a  year  be- 
fore, and  I  never  had  half  the  fun  that  I  had  when 
we  were  getting  along  on  twelve  hundred." 

"Yes,  but  then  we  were  always  dreaming  of  the 
day  when  I'd  make  a  lot;  we  lived  on  that  hope, 
didn't  we?" 

Edith  laughed.  "You  used  to  say  we  lived  on 
love." 

"You're  not  serious."  He  turned  to  gaze  moodily 
out  of  the  window.  And  then  she  left  the  azalea, 
and  perched  on  the  flat  arm  of  his  chair. 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  5 

"Dearest,"  she  said,  "I  am  serious.  I  know  all 
this  means  to  you.  We're  human,  and  we  don't  like 
to  'chip  at  crusts  like  Hindus,'  even  for  the  sake  of 
youth  and  art.  I  never  had  illusions  about  love  in  a 
cottage  and  all  that.  Only,  dear,  I  have  been  happy, 
so  very  happy,  with  you,  because — well,  because  I 
was  living  in  an  atmosphere  of  honest  purpose,  hon- 
est ambition,  and  honest  desire  to  do  some  good 
thing  in  the  world.  I  had  never  known  such  an  at- 
mosphere before.  At  home,  you  know,  father  and 
Uncle  James  and  the  boys — well,  it  was  all  money, 
money,  money  with  them,  and  they  couldn't  under- 
stand why  I — " 

"Could  marry  a  poor  newspaper  artist!  That's 
just  the  point." 

She  put  her  hand  to  his  lips. 

"Now,  dear!  If  they  couldn't  understand,  so 
much  the  worse  for  them.  If  they  thought  it  meant 
sacrifice  to  me,  they  were  mistaken.  I  have  been 
happy  in  this  little  flat ;  only — "  she  leaned  back  and 
inclined  her  head  with  her  eyes  asquint — "only  the 
paper  in  this  room  is  atrocious;  it's  a  typical  land- 
lord's selection — McGaw  picked  it  out.  You  see 
what  it  means  to  be  merely  rich." 


6  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

She  was  so  pretty  thus  that  he  kissed  her,  and 
then  she  went  on : 

"And  so,  dear,  if  I  didn't  seem  to  be  as  impressed 
and  delighted  as  you  hoped  to  find  me,  it  is  because 
I  was  thinking  of  Mr.  Hardy  and  the  poor,  dear, 
common  little  Post,  and  then — of  Mr.  Clayton.  Did 
you  think  of  him?" 

"Yes." 

"You'll  have  to — to  cartoon  him?" 

"I  suppose  so." 

The  fact  he  had  not  allowed  himself  to  face  was 
close  to  both  of  them,  and  the  subject  was  dropped 
until,  just  as  he  was  going  down-town — this  time  to 
break  the  news  to  Hardy — he  went  into  the  room  he 
sarcastically  said  he  might  begin  to  call  his  studio, 
now  that  he  was  getting  ten  thousand  a  year,  to  look 
for  a  sketch  he  had  promised  Nolan  for  the  sporting 
page.  And  there  on  his  drawing-board  was  an  un- 
finished cartoon,  a  drawing  of  the  strong  face  of 
John  Clayton.  He  had  begun  it  a  few  days  before 
to  use  on  the  occasion  of  Clayton's  renomination.  It 
had  been  a  labor  of  love,  and  Kittrell  suddenly  real- 
ized how  good  it  was.  He  had  put  into  it  all  of  his 
belief  in  Clayton,  all  of  his  devotion  to  the  cause  for 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  7 

which  Clayton  toiled  and  sacrificed,  and  in  the  sim- 
ple lines  he  experienced  the  artist's  ineffable  felicity ; 
he  had  shown  how  good,  how  noble,  how  true  a  man 
Clayton  was.  All  at  once  he  realized  the  sensation 
the  cartoon  would  produce,  how  it  would  delight 
and  hearten  Clayton's  followers,  how  it  would  please 
Hardy,  and  how  it  would  touch  Clayton.  It  would 
be  a  tribute  to  the  man  and  the  friendship,  but  now 
a  tribute  broken,  unfinished.  Kittrell  gazed  a  mo- 
ment longer,  and  in  that  moment  Edith  came. 

"The  dear,  beautiful  soul!"  she  exclaimed  softly. 
"Neil,  it  is  wonderful.  It  is  not  a  cartoon;  it  is  a 
portrait.  It  shows  what  you  might  do  with  a  brush." 

Kittrell  could  not  speak,  and  he  turned  the  draw- 
ing-board to  the  wall. 

When  he  had  gone,  Edith  sat  and  thought — of 
Neil,  of  the  new  position,  of  Clayton.  He  had  loved 
Neil,  and  been  so  proud  of  his  work ;  he  had  shown 
a  frank,  naive  pleasure  in  the  cartoons  Neil  had 
made  of  him.  That  last  time  he  was  there,  thought 
Edith,  he  had  said  that  without  Neil  the  "good  old 
cause,"  as  he  called  it,  using  Whitman's  phrase, 
could  never  have  triumphed  in  that  town.  And  now, 
would  he  come  again  ?  Would  he  ever  stand  in  that 


8  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

room  and,  with  his  big,  hearty  laugh,  clasp  an  arm 
around  Neil's  shoulder,  or  speak  of  her  in  his  good, 
friendly  way  as  "the  little  woman?"  Would  he 
come  now,  in  the  terrible  days  of  the  approaching 
campaign,  for  rest  and  sympathy — come  as  he  used 
to  come  in  other  campaigns,  worn  and  weary  from 
all  the  brutal  opposition,  the  vilification  and  abuse 
and  mud-slinging?  She  closed  her  eyes.  She  could 
not  think  that  far. 

Kittrell  found  the  task  of  telling  Hardy  just  as 
difficult  as  he  expected  it  to  be,  but  by  some  mercy  it 
did  not  last  long.  Explanation  had  not  been  neces- 
sary; he  had  only  to  make  the  first  hesitating  ap- 
proaches, and  Hardy  understood.  Hardy  was,  in  a 
way,  hurt ;  Kittrell  saw  that,  and  rushed  to  his  own 
defense : 

"I  hate  to  go,  old  man.  I  don't  like  it  a  little  bit 
— but,  you  know,  business  is  business,  and  we  need 
the  money." 

He  even  tried  to  laugh  as  he  advanced  this  last 
conclusive  reason,  and  Hardy,  for  all  he  showed  in 
voice  or  phrase,  may  have  agreed  with  him. 

"It's  all  right,  Kit,"  he  said.  "I'm  sorry;  I  wish 
we  could  pay  you  more,  but — well,  good  luck." 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  9 

That  was  all.  Kittrell  gathered  up  the  few  articles 
he  had  at  the  office,  gave  Nolan  his  sketch,  bade  the 
boys  good-by — bade  them  good-by  as  if  he  were  go- 
ing on  a  long  journey,  never  to  see  them  more — and 
then  he  went. 

After  he  had  made  the  break  it  did  not  seem  so 
bad  as  he  had  anticipated.  At  first  things  went  on 
smoothly  enough.  The  campaign  had  not  opened, 
and  he  was  free  to  exercise  his  talents  outside  the 
political  field.  He  drew  cartoons  dealing  with  banal 
subjects,  touching  with  the  gentle  satire  of  his  hu- 
morous pencil  foibles  which  all  the  world  agreed 
about,  and  let  vital  questions  alone.  And  he  and 
Edith  enjoyed  themselves :  indulged  oftener  in 
things  they  loved ;  went  more  frequently  to  the  thea- 
ter ;  appeared  at  recitals ;  dined  now  and  then  down- 
town. They  began  to  realize  certain  luxuries  they 
had  not  known  for  a  long  time — some  he  himself 
had  never  known,  some  that  Edith  had  not  known 
since  she  left  her  father's  home  to  become  his  bride. 
In  more  subtle  ways,  too,  Kittrell  felt  the  change: 
there  was  a  sense  of  larger  leisure;  the  future 
beamed  with  a  broader  and  brighter  light ;  he  formed 
plans,  among  which  the  old  dream  of  going  ere  long 


10  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

to  Paris  for  serious  study  took  its  dignified  place. 
And  then  there  was  the  sensation  his  change  had 
created  in  the  newspaper  world;  that  the  cartoons 
signed  "Kit,"  which  formerly  appeared  in  the  Post, 
should  now  adorn  the  broad  page  of  the  Telegraph 
was  a  thing  to  talk  about  at  the  press  club ;  the  fact 
of  his  large  salary  got  abroad  in  that  little  world  as 
well,  and,  after  the  way  of  that  world,  managed  to 
exaggerate  itself,  as  most  facts  did.  He  began  to  be 
sensible  of  attentions  from  men  of  prominence — 
small  things,  mere  nods  in  the  street,  perhaps,  or 
smiles  in  the  theater  foyer,  but  enough  to  show  that 
they  recognized  him.  What  those  children  of  the 
people,  those  working-men  and  women  who  used  to 
be  his  unknown  and  admiring  friends  in  the  old  days 
on  the  Post,  thought  of  him — whether  they  missed 
him,  whether  they  deplored  his  change  as  an  apos- 
tasy or  applauded  it  as  a  promotion — he  did  not 
know.  He  did  not  like  to  think  about  it. 

But  March  came,  and  the  politicians  began  to  blus- 
ter like  the  season.  Late  one  afternoon  he  was  on 
his  way  to  the  office  with  a  cartoon,  the  first  in  which 
he  had  seriously  to  attack  Clayton.  Benson,  the 
managing  editor  of  the  Telegraph,  had  conceived 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  n 

it,  and  Kittrell  had  worked  on  it  that  day  in  sickness 
of  heart.  Every  lying  line  of  this  new  presentation 
of  Clayton  had  cut  him  like  some  biting  acid ;  but  he 
had  worked  on,  trying  to  reassure  himself  with  the 
argument  that  he  was  a  mere  agent,  devoid  of  per- 
sonal responsibility.  But  it  had  been  hard,  and  when 
Edith,  after  her  custom,  had  asked  to  see  it,  he  had 
said : 

"Oh,  you  don't  want  to  see  it;  it's  no  good." 

"Is  it  of — him  ?"  she  had  asked. 

And  when  he  nodded  she  had  gone  away  without 
another  word.  Now,  as  he  hurried  through  the 
crowded  streets,  he  was  conscious  that  it  was  no 
good,  indeed ;  and  he  was  divided  between  the  artist's 
regret  and  the  friend's  joy  in  the  fact.  But  it  made 
him  tremble.  Was  his  hand  to  forget  its  cunning? 
And  then,  suddenly,  he  heard  a  familiar  voice,  and 
there  beside  him,  with  his  hand  on  his  shoulder, 
stood  the  mayor. 

"Why,  Neil,  my  boy,  how  are  you?"  he  said,  and 
he  took  Kittrell's  hand  as  warmly  as  ever.  For  a 
moment  Kittrell  was  relieved,  and  then  his  heart 
sank ;  for  he  had  a  quick  realization  that  it  was  the 
coward  within  him  that  felt  the  relief,  and  the  man 


12  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

the  sickness.  If  Clayton  had  reproached  him,  or  cut 
him,  it  would  have  made  it  easier;  but  Clayton  did 
none  of  these  things,  and  Kittrell  was  irresistibly 
drawn  to  the  subject  himself. 

"You  heard  of  my — new  job?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,"  said  Clayton,  "I  heard." 

"Well—"  Kittrell  began. 

"I'm  sorry,"  Clayton  said. 

"So  was  I,"  Kittrell  hastened  to  say.  "But  I  felt 
it — well,  a  duty,  some  way — to  Edith.  You  know — 
we — need  the  money."  And  he  gave  the  cynical 
laugh  that  went  with  the  argument. 

"What  does  she  think?  Does  she  feel  that  way 
about  it?" 

Kittrell  laughed,  not  cynically  now,  but  uneasily 
and  with  embarrassment,  for  Clayton's  blue  eyes 
were  on  him,  those  eyes  that  could  look  into  men  and 
understand  them  so. 

"Of  course  you  know,"  Kittrell  went  on  nerv- 
ously, "there  is  nothing  personal  in  this.  We  news- 
paper fellows  simply  do  what  we  are  told ;  we  obey 
orders  like  soldiers,  you  know.  With  the  policy  of 
the  paper  we  have  nothing  to  do.  Just  like  Dick  Jen- 
nings, who  was  a  red-hot  free-trader  and  used  to 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  13 

write  free-trade  editorials  for  the  Times — he  went 
over  to  the  Telegraph,  you  remember,  and  writes  all 
those  protection  arguments." 

The  mayor  did  not  seem  to  be  interested  in  Dick 
Jennings,  or  in  the  ethics  of  his  profession. 

"Of  course,  you  know  I'm  for  you,  Mr.  Clayton, 
just  exactly  as  I've  always  been.  I'm  going  to  vote 
for  you." 

This  did  not  seem  to  interest  the  mayor,  either. 

"And,  maybe,  you  know — I  thought,  perhaps,"  he 
snatched  at  this  bright  new  idea  that  had  come  to 
him  just  in  the  nick  of  time,  "that  I  might  help  you 
by  my  cartoons  in  the  Telegraph;  that  is,  I  might 
keep  them  from  being  as  bad  as  they  might — " 

"But  that  wouldn't  be  dealing  fairly  with  your 
new  employers,  Neil,"  the  mayor  said. 

Kittrell  was  making  more  and  more  a  mess  of  this 
whole  miserable  business,  and  he  was  basely  glad 
when  they  reached  the  corner. 

"Well,  good-by,  my  boy,"  said  the  mayor,  as  they 
parted.  "Remember  me  to  the  little  woman." 

Kittrell  watched  him  as  he  went  on  down  the 
avenue,  swinging  along  in  his  free  way,  the  broad 
felt  hat  he  wore  riding  above  all  the  other  hats  in 


14  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

the  throng  that  filled  the  sidewalk;  and  Kittrell 
sighed  in  deep  depression. 

When  he  turned  in  his  cartoon,  Benson  scanned  it 
a  moment,  cocked  his  head  this  side  and  that,  puffed 
his  brier  pipe,  and  finally  said : 

"I'm  afraid  this  is  hardly  up  to  you.  This  figure 
of  Clayton,  here — it  hasn't  got  the  stuff  in  it.  You 
want  to  show  him  as  he  is.  We  want  the  people  to 
know  what  a  four-flushing,  hypocritical,  demagog- 
ical blatherskite  he  is — with  all  his  rot  about  the  peo- 
ple and  their  damned  rights !" 

Benson  was  all  unconscious  of  the  inconsistency 
of  having  concern  for  a  people  he  so  despised,  and 
Kittrell  did  not  observe  it,  either.  He  was  on  the 
point  of  defending  Clayton,  but  he  restrained  him- 
self and  listened  to  Benson's  suggestions.  He  re- 
mained at  the  office  for  two  hours,  trying  to  change 
the  cartoon  to  Benson's  satisfaction,  with  a  grow- 
ing hatred  of  the  work  and  a  disgust  with  himself 
that  now  and  then  almost  drove  him  to  mad  destruc- 
tion. He  felt  like  splashing  the  piece  with  India  ink, 
or  ripping  it  with  his  knife.  But  he  worked  on,  and 
submitted  it  again.  He  had  failed,  of  course ;  failed 
to  express  in  it  that  hatred  of  a  class  which  Benson 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  15 

unconsciously  disguised  as  a  hatred  of  Clayton,  a 
hatred  which  Kittrell  could  not  express  because  he 
did  not  feel  it ;  and  he  failed  because  art  deserts  her 
devotees  when  they  are  false  to  truth. 

"Well,  it'll  have  to  do,"  said  Benson,  as  he  looked 
it  over ;  "but  let's  have  a  little  more  to  the  next  one. 
Damn  it!  I  wish  I  could  draw.  I'd  cartoon  the 
crook!" 

In  default  of  which  ability,  Benson  set  himself  to 
write  one  of  those  savage  editorials  in  which  he 
poured  out  on  Clayton  that  venom  of  which  he 
seemed  to  have  such  an  inexhaustible  supply. 

But  on  one  point  Benson  was  right :  Kittrell  was 
not  up  to  himself.  As  the  campaign  opened,  as  the 
city  was  swept  with  the  excitement  of  it,  with  meet- 
ings at  noon-day  and  at  night,  office-seekers  flying 
about  in  automobiles,  walls  covered  with  pictures  of 
candidates,  hand-bills  scattered  in  the  streets  to  swirl 
in  the  wild  March  winds,  and  men  quarreling  over 
whether  Clayton  or  Ellsworth  should  be  mayor, 
Kittrell  had  to  draw  a  political  cartoon  each  day; 
and  as  he  struggled  with  his  work,  less  and  less  the 
old  joy  came  to  cheer  and  spur  him  on.  To  read  the 
ridicule,  the  abuse,  which  the  Telegraph  heaped  on 


1 6  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

Clayton,  the  distortion  of  facts  concerning  his  can- 
didature, the  unfair  reports  of  his  meetings,  sick- 
ened him,  and  more  than  all,  he  was  filled  with  dis- 
gust as  he  tried  to  match  in  caricature  these  libels 
of  the  man  he  so  loved  and  honored.  It  was  bad 
enough  to  have  to  flatter  Clayton's  opponent,  to  pic- 
ture him  as  a  noble,  disinterested  character,  ready 
to  sacrifice  himself  for  the  public  weal.  Into  his 
pictures  of  this  man,  attired  in  the  long  black  coat  of 
conventional  respectability,  with  the  smug  face  of 
pharisaism,  he  could  get  nothing  but  cant  and  hy- 
pocrisy ;  but  in  his  caricatures  of  Clayton  there  was 
that  which  pained  him  worse — disloyalty,  untruth, 
and  now  and  then,  to  the  discerning  few  who  knew 
the  tragedy  of  Kittrell's  soul,  there  was  pity.  And 
thus  his  work  declined  in  value ;  lacking  all  sincerity, 
all  faith  in  itself  or  its  purpose,  it  became  false,  un- 
certain, full  of  jarring  notes,  and,  in  short,  never 
once  rang  true.  As  for  Edith,  she  never  discussed 
his  work  now ;  she  spoke  of  the  campaign  little,  and 
yet  he  knew  she  was  deeply  concerned,  and  she  grew 
hot  with  resentment  at  the  methods  of  the  Tele- 
graph. Her  only  consolation  was  derived  from  the 
Tost,  which,  of  course,  supported  Clayton ;  and  the 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  17 

final  drop  of  bitterness  in  Kittrell's  cup  came  one 
evening  when  he  realized  that  she  was  following  with 
sympathetic  interest  the  cartoons  in  that  paper. 

For  the  Post  had  a  new  cartoonist,  Banks,  a  boy 
whom  Hardy  had  picked  up  somewhere  and  was 
training  to  the  work  Kittrell  had  laid  down.  To 
Kittrell  there  was  a  cruel  fascination  in  the  progress 
Banks  was  making;  he  watched  it  with  a  critical, 
professional  eye,  at  first  with  amusement,  then  with 
surprise,  and  now  at  last,  in  the  discovery  of  Edith's 
interest,  with  a  keen  jealousy  of  which  he  was 
ashamed.  The  boy  was  crude  and  untrained;  his 
work  was  not  to  be  compared  with  Kittrell's,  master 
of  line  that  he  was,  but  Kittrell  saw  that  it  had  the 
thing  his  work  now  lacked,  the  vital,  primal  thing — 
sincerity,  belief,  love.  The  spark  was  there,  and  Kit- 
trell knew  how  Hardy  would  nurse  that  spark  and 
fan  it,  and  keep  it  alive  and  burning  until  it  should 
eventually  blaze  up  in  a  fine  white  flame.  And  Kit- 
trell realized,  as  the  days  went  by,  that  Banks'  work 
was  telling,  and  that  his  own  was  failing.  He  had, 
from  the  first,  missed  the  atmosphere  of  the  Post, 
missed  the  camaraderie  of  the  congenial  spirits  there, 
animated  by  a  common  purpose,  inspired  and  led  by 


i8  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

Hardy,  whom  they  all  loved — loved  as  he  himself 
once  loved  him,  loved  as  he  loved  him  still — and  dare 
not  look  him  in  the  face  when  they  met ! 

He  found  the  atmosphere  of  the  Telegraph  alien 
and  distasteful.  There  all  was  different ;  the  men  had 
little  joy  in  their  work,  little  interest  in  it,  save  per- 
haps the  newspaper  man's  inborn  love  of  a  good 
story  or  a  beat.  They  were  all  cynical,  without  loy- 
alty or  faith;  they  secretly  made  fun  of  the  Tele- 
graph, of  its  editors  and  owners;  they  had  no  belief 
in  its  cause ;  and  its  pretensions  to  respectability,  its 
parade  of  virtue,  excited  only  their  derision.  And 
slowly  it  began  to  dawn  on  Kittrell  that  the  great 
moral  law  worked  always  and  everywhere,  even  on 
newspapers,  and  that  there  was  reflected  inevitably 
and  logically  in  the  work  of  the  men  on  that  staff 
the  hatred,  the  lack  of  principle,  the  bigotry  and  in- 
tolerance of  its  proprietors;  and  this  same  lack  of 
principle  tainted  and  made  meretricious  his  own 
work,  and  enervated  the  editorials  so  that  the  Tele- 
graph, no  matter  how  carefully  edited  or  how  dig- 
nified in  typographical  appearance,  was,  neverthe- 
less, without  real  influence  in  the  community. 

Meanwhile  Clayton  was  gaining  ground.    It  was 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  19 

less  than  two  weeks  before  election.  The  campaign 
waxed  more  and  more  bitter,  and  as  the  forces  op- 
posed to  him  foresaw  defeat,  they  became  ugly  in 
spirit,  and  desperate.  The  Telegraph  took  on  a  tone 
more  menacing  and  brutal,  and  Kittrell  knew  that  the 
crisis  had  come.  The  might  of  the  powers  massed 
against  Clayton  appalled  Kittrell ;  they  thundered  at 
him  through  many  brazen  mouths,  but  Clayton  held 
on  his  high  way  unperturbed.  He  was  speaking  by 
day  and  night  to  thousands.  Such  meetings  he  had 
never  had  before.  Kittrell  had  visions  of  him  be- 
fore those  immense  audiences  in  halls,  in  tents,  in 
the  raw  open  air  of  that  rude  March  weather,  mak- 
ing his  appeals  to  the  heart  of  the  great  mass.  A 
fine,  splendid,  romantic  figure  he  was,  striking  to  the 
imagination,  this  champion  of  the  people's  cause,  and 
Kittrell  longed  for  the  lost  chance.  Oh,  for  one  day 
on  the  Post  now ! 

One  morning  at  breakfast,  as  Edith  read  the  Tele- 
graph, Kittrell  saw  the  tears  well  slowly  in  her 
brown  eyes. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "it  is  shameful!"  She  clenched 
her  little  fists.  "Oh,  if  I  were  only  a  man  I'd — "  She 
could  not  in  her  impotent  feminine  rage  say  what 


20  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

she  would  do;  she  could  only  grind  her  teeth.  Kit- 
trell  bent  his  head  over  his  plate;  his  coffee  choked 
him. 

"Dearest,"  she  said  presently,  in  another  tone, 
"tell  me,  how  is  he?  Do  you — ever  see  him?  Will 
he  win?" 

"No,  I  never  see  him.  But  he'll  win ;  I  wouldn't 
worry." 

"He  used  to  come  here,"  she  went  on,  "to  rest  a 
moment,  to  escape  from  all  this  hateful  confusion 
and  strife.  He  is  killing  himself!  And  they  aren't 
worth  it — those  ignorant  people — they  aren't  worth 
such  sacrifices." 

He  got  up  from  the  table  and  turned  away,  and 
then,  realizing  quickly,  she  flew  to  his  side  and  put 
her  arms  about  his  neck  and  said : 

"Forgive  me,  dearest,  I  didn't  mean — only — " 

"Oh,  Edith,"  he  said,  "this  is  killing  me.  I  feel 
like  a  dog." 

"Don't  dear ;  he  is  big  enough,  and  good  enough  ; 
he  will  understand." 

"Yes;  that  only  makes  it  harder,  only  makes  it 
hurt  the  more." 

That  afternoon,  in  the  car,  he  heard  no  talk  but 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  21 

of  the  election;  and  down-town,  in  a  cigar  store 
where  he  stopped  for  cigarettes,  he  heard  some  men 
talking  mysteriously,  in  the  hollow  voice  of  rumor, 
of  some  sensation,  some  scandal.  It  alarmed  him, 
and  as  he  went  into  the  office  he  met  Manning,  the 
Telegraph's  political  man. 

"Tell  me,  Manning,"  Kittrell  said,  "how  does  it 
look?" 

"Damn  bad  for  us." 

"For  us?" 

"Well,  for  our  mob  of  burglars  and  second  story 
workers  here — the  gang  we  represent."  He  took  a 
cigarette  from  the  box  Kittrell  was  opening. 

"And  will  he  win?" 

"Will  he  win  ?"  said  Manning,  exhaling  the  words 
on  the  thin  level  stream  of  smoke  that  came  from 
his  lungs.  "Will  he  win  ?  In  a  walk,  I  tell  you.  He's 
got  'em  beat  to  a  standstill  right  now.  That's  the 
dope." 

"But  what  about  this  story  of — " 

"Aw,  that's  all  a  pipe-dream  of  Burns'.  I'm 
running  it  in  the  morning,  but  it's  nothing;  it's  a 
shine.  They're  big  fools  to  print  it  at  all.  But  it's 
their  last  card ;  they're  desperate.  They  won't  stop 


22  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

at  anything,  or  at  any  crime,  except  those  requiring 
courage.  Burns  is  in  there  with  Benson  now;  so  is 
Salton,  and  old  man  Glenn,  and  the  rest  of  the  bunco 
family.  They're  framing  it  up.  When  I  saw  old 
Glenn  go  in,  with  his  white  side-whiskers,  I  knew  the 
widow  and  the  orphan  were  in  danger  again,  and 
that  he  was  going  bravely  to  the  front  for  'em.  Say, 
that  young  Banks  is  comin',  isn't  he  ?  That's  a  peach, 
that  cartoon  of  his  to-night." 

Kittrell  went  on  down  the  hall  to  the  art-room  to 
wait  until  Benson  should  be  free.  But  it  was  not 
long  until  he  was  sent  for,  and  as  he  entered  the 
managing  editor's  room  he  was  instantly  sensible  of 
the  somber  atmosphere  of  a  grave  and  solemn  coun- 
cil of  war.  Benson  introduced  him  to  Glenn,  the 
banker,  to  Salton,  the  party  boss,  and  to  Burns,  the 
president  of  the  street-car  company ;  and  as  Kittrell 
sat  down  he  looked  about  him,  and  could  scarcely 
repress  a  smile  as  he  recalled  Manning's  estimate  of 
Glenn.  The  old  man  sat  there,  as  solemn  and  unctu- 
ous as  ever  he  had  in  his  pew  at  church.  Benson, 
red  of  face,  was  more  plainly  perturbed,  but  Salton 
was  as  reserved,  as  immobile,  as  inscrutable  as  ever, 
his  narrow,  pointed  face,  with  its  vulpine  expression, 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  23 

being  perhaps  paler  than  usual.  Benson  had  on  his 
desk  before  him  the  cartoon  Kittrell  had  finished  that 
day. 

"Mr.  Kittrell,"  Benson  began,  "we've  been  talking 
over  the  political  situation,  and  I  was  showing  these 
gentlemen  this  cartoon.  It  isn't,  I  fear,  in  your  best 
style;  it  lacks  the  force,  the  argument,  we'd  like  just 
at  this  time.  That  isn't  the  Telegraph  Clayton,  Mr. 
Kittrell."  He  pointed  with  the  amber  stem  of  his 
pipe.  "Not  at  all.  Clayton  is  a  strong,  smart,  un- 
scrupulous, dangerous  man!  We've  reached  a  crisis 
in  this  campaign ;  if  we  can't  turn  things  in  the  next 
three  days,  we're  lost,  that's  all;  we  might  as  well 
face  it.  To-morrow  we  make  an  important  revela- 
tion concerning  the  character  of  Clayton,  and  we 
want  to  follow  it  up  the  morning  after  by  a  cartoon 
that  will  be  a  stunner,  a  clencher.  We  have  discussed 
it  here  among  ourselves,  and  this  is  our  idea." 

Benson  drew  a  crude,  bald  outline,  indicating  the 
cartoon  they  wished  Kittrell  to  draw.  The  idea  was 
so  coarse,  so  brutal,  so  revolting,  that  Kittrell  stood 
aghast,  and,  as  he  stood,  he  was  aware  of  Salton's 
little  eyes  fixed  on  him.  Benson  waited;  they  all 
waited. 


24  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

"Well,"  said  Benson,  "what  do  you  think  of  it?" 
Kittrell  paused  an  instant,  and  then  said : 
"I  won't  draw  it ;  that's  what  I  think  of  it." 
Benson  flushed  angrily  and  looked  up  at  him. 
"We  are  paying  you  a  very  large  salary,  Mr.  Kit- 
trell, and  your  work,  if  you  will  pardon  me,  has  not 
been  up  to  what  we  were  led  to  expect." 

"You  are  quite  right,  Mr.  Benson,  but  I  can't  draw 
that  cartoon." 

"Well,  great  God !"  yelled  Burns,  "what  have  we 
got  here — a  gold  brick?"  He  rose  with  a  vivid  sneer 
on  his  red  face,  plunged  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and 
took  two  or  three  nervous  strides  across  the  room. 
Kittrell  looked  at  him,  and  slowly  his  eyes  blazed  out 
of  a  face  that  had  gone  white  on  the  instant. 
"What  did  you  say,  sir?"  he  demanded. 
Burns  thrust  his  red  face,  with  its  prognathic 
jaw,  menacingly  toward  Kittrell. 

"I  said  that  in  you  we'd  got  a  gold  brick." 
"You  ?"  said  Kittrell.  "What  have  you  to  do  with 
it  ?  I  don't  work  for  you." 

"You  don't  ?  Well,  I  guess  it's  us  that  puts  up — " 
"Gentlemen!    Gentlemen!"  said  Glenn,  waving  a 
white,  pacificatory  hand. 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  25 

"Yes,  let  me  deal  with  this,  if  you  please,"  said 
Benson,  looking  hard  at  Burns.  The  street-car  man 
sneered  again,  then,  in  ostentatious  contempt,  looked 
out  the  window.  And  in  the  stillness  Benson  con- 
tinued : 

"Mr.  Kittrell,  think  a  minute.  Is  your  decision 
final?" 

"It  is  final,  Mr.  Benson,"  said  Kittrell.  "And  as 
for  you,  Burns,"  he  glared  angrily  at  the  man,  "I 
wouldn't  draw  that  cartoon  for  all  the  dirty  money 
that  all  the  bribing  street-car  companies  in  the  world 
could  put  into  Mr.  Glenn's  bank  here.  Good  evening, 
gentlemen." 

It  was  not  until  he  stood  again  in  his  own  home 
that  Kittrell  felt  the  physical  effects  which  the  spirit- 
ual squalor  of  such  a  scene  was  certain  to  produce 
in  a  nature  like  his. 

"Neil!  What  is  the  matter?"  Edith  fluttered 
toward  him  in  alarm. 

He  sank  into  a  chair,  and  for  a  moment  he  looked 
as  if  he  would  faint,  but  he  looked  wanly  up  at  her 
and  said : 

"Nothing;  I'm  all  right;  just  a  little  weak.  I've 
gone  through  a  sickening,  horrible  scene — " 


26  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Dearest!" 

"And  I'm  off  the  Telegraph — and  a  man  once 
more!" 

He  bent  over,  with  his  elbows  on  his  knees,  his 
head  in  his  hands,  and  when  Edith  put  her  calm, 
caressing  hand  on  his  brow,  she  found  that  it  was 
moist  from  nervousness.  Presently  he  was  able  to 
tell  her  the  whole  story. 

"It  was,  after  all,  Edith,  a  fitting  conclusion  to  my 
experience  on  the  Telegraph.  I  suppose,  though,  that 
to  people  who  are  used  to  ten  thousand  a  year  such 
scenes  are  nothing  at  all."  She  saw  in  this  trace  of 
his  old  humor  that  he  was  himself  again,  and  she 
hugged  his  head  to  her  bosom. 

"Oh,  dearest,"  she  said,  "I'm  proud  of  you — and 
happy  again." 

They  were,  indeed,  both  happy,  happier  than  they 
had  been  in  weeks. 

The  next  morning  after  breakfast,  she  saw  by  his 
manner,  by  the  humorous,  almost  comical  expression 
about  his  eyes,  that  he  had  an  idea.  In  this  mood 
of  satisfaction — this  mood  that  comes  too  seldom 
in  the  artist's  life — she  knew  it  was  wise  to  let  him 
alone.  And  he  lighted  his  pipe  and  went  to  work. 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  27 

She  heard  him  now  and  then,  singing  or  whistling 
or  humming;  she  scented  his  pipe,  then  cigarettes; 
then,  at  last,  after  two  hours,  he  called  in  a  loud, 
triumphant  tone : 

"Oh,  Edith!" 

She  was  at  the  door  in  an  instant,  and,  waving 
his  hand  grandly  at  his  drawing-board,  he  turned 
to  her  with  that  expression  which  connotes  the  great- 
est joy  gods  or  mortals  can  know — the  joy  of  be- 
holding one's  own  work  and  finding  it  good.  He 
had,  as  she  saw,  returned  to  the  cartoon  of  Clayton 
he  had  laid  aside  when  the  tempter  came ;  and  now 
it  was  finished.  Its  simple  lines  revealed  Clayton's 
character,  as  the  sufficient  answer  to  all  the  charges 
the  Telegraph  might  make  against  him.  Edith  leaned 
against  the  door  and  looked  long  and  critically. 

"It  was  fine  before,"  she  said  presently ;  "it's  bet- 
ter now.  Before  it  was  a  portrait  of  the  man ;  this 
shows  his  soul." 

"Well,  it's  how  he  looks  to  me,"  said  Neil,  "after 
a  month  in  which  to  appreciate  him." 

"But  what,"  she  said,  stooping  and  peering  at  the 
edge  of  the  drawing,  where,  despite  much  knife- 
scraping,  vague  figures  appeared,  "what's  that?" 


28  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Oh,  I'm  ashamed  to  tell  you/'  he  said.  "I'll  have 
to  paste  over  that  before  it's  electrotyped.  You  see,  I 
had  a  notion  of  putting  in  the  gang,  and  I  drew  four 
little  figures — Benson,  Burns,  Salton  and  Glenn; 
they  were  plotting — oh,  it  was  foolish  and  un- 
worthy. I  decided  I  didn't  want  anything  of  hatred 
in  it — just  as  he  wouldn't  want  anything  of  hatred 
in  it ;  so  I  rubbed  them  out." 

"Well,  I'm  glad.  It  is  beautiful;  it  makes  up  for 
everything;  it's  an  appreciation — worthy  of  the 
man." 

When  Kittrell  entered  the  office  of  the  Post,  the 
boys  greeted  him  with  delight,  and  his  presence  made 
a  sensation,  for  there  had  been  rumors  of  the  break 
which  the  absence  of  a  "Kit"  cartoon  in  the  Tele- 
graph that  morning  had  confirmed.  But,  if  Hardy 
was  surprised,  his  surprise  was  swallowed  up  in  his 
joy,  and  Kittrell  was  grateful  to  him  for  the  deli- 
cacy with  which  he  touched  the  subject  that  con- 
sumed the  newspaper  and  political  world  with  curi- 
osity. 

"I'm  glad,  Kit,"  was  all  that  he  said.  "You  know 
that." 

Then  he  forgot  everything  in  the  cartoon,  and  he 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  29 

showed  his  instant  recognition  of  its  significance  by 
snatching  out  his  watch,  pushing  a  button,  and  say- 
ing to  Garland,  who  came  to  the  door  in  his  shirt- 
sleeves : 

"Tell  Nic  to  hold  the  first  edition  for  a  five-col- 
umn first-page  cartoon.  And  send  this  up  right 
away." 

They  had  a  last  look  at  it  before  it  went,  and  after 
gazing  a  moment  in  silence  Hardy  said : 

"It's  the  greatest  thing  you  ever  did,  Kit,  and  it 
comes  at  the  psychological  moment.  It'll  elect  him." 

"Oh,  he  was  elected  anyhow." 

Hardy  shook  his  head,  and  in  the  movement  Kit- 
trell  saw  how  the  strain  of  the  campaign  had  told  on 
him.  "No,  he  wasn't ;  the  way  they've  been  hammer- 
ing him  is  something  fierce;  and  the  Telegraph — 
well,  your  cartoons  and  all,  you  know." 

"But  my  cartoons  in  the  Telegraph  were  rotten. 
Any  work  that  is  not  sincere,  not  intellectually  hon- 
est—" 

Hardy  interrupted  him : 

"Yes;  but,  Kit,  you're  so  good  that  your  rotten 
is  better  than  'most  anybody's  best."  He  smiled, 
and  Kittrell  blushed  and  looked  away. 


30  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

Hardy  was  right.  The  "Kit"  cartoon,  back  in  the 
Post,  created  its  sensation,  and  after  it  appeared  the 
political  reporters  said  it  had  started  a  landslide  to 
Clayton ;  that  the  betting  was  4  to  I  and  no  takers, 
and  that  it  was  all  over  but  the  shouting. 

That  night,  as  they  were  at  dinner,  the  telephone 
rang,  and  in  a  minute  Neil  knew  by  Edith's  excited 
and  delighted  reiteration  of  "yes,"  "yes>"  who  had 
called  up.  And  then  he  heard  her  say : 

"Indeed  I  will ;  I'll  come  every  night  and  sit  in  the 
front  seat" 

When  Kittrell  displaced  Edith  at  the  telephone, 
he  heard  the  voice  of  John  Clayton,  lower  in  regis- 
ter and  somewhat  husky  after  four  weeks'  speaking, 
but  more  musical  than  ever  in  Kittrell's  ears  when  it 
said: 

"I  just  told  the  little  woman,  Neil,  that  I  didn't 
know  how  to  say  it,  so  I  wanted  her  to  thank  you  for 
me.  It  was  beautiful  in  you,  and  I  wish  I  were 
worthy  of  it ;  it  was  simply  your  own  good  soul  ex- 
pressing itself." 

And  it  was  the  last  delight  to  Kittrell  to  hear  that 
voice  and  to  know  that  all  was  well. 

But  one  question  remained  unsettled.   Kittrell  had 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  31 

been  on  the  Telegraph  a  month,  and  his  contract  dif- 
fered from  that  ordinarily  made  by  the  members  of 
a  newspaper  staff  in  that  he  was  paid  by  the  year, 
though  in  monthly  instalments.  Kittrell  knew  that 
he  had  broken  his  contract  on  grounds  which  the  sor- 
did law  would  not  see  or  recognize  and  the  average 
court  think  absurd,  and  that  the  Telegraph  might 
legally  refuse  to  pay  him  at  all.  He  hoped  the  Tele- 
graph would  do  this!  But  it  did  not;  on  the  con- 
trary, he  received  the  next  day  a  check  for  his 
month's  work.  He  held  it  up  for  Edith's  inspection. 

"Of  course,  I'll  have  to  send  it  back,"  he  said. 

"Certainly." 

"Do  you  think  me  quixotic  ?" 

"Well,  we're  poor  enough  as  it  is — let's  have  some 
luxuries;  let's  be  quixotic  until  after  election,  at 
least." 

"Sure,"  said  Neil;  "just  what  I  was  thinking. 
I'm  going  to  do  a  cartoon  every  day  for  the  Post 
until  election  day,  and  I'm  not  going  to  take  a  cent. 
I  don't  want  to  crowd  Banks  out,  you  know,  and  I 
want  to  do  my  part  for  Clayton  and  the  cause,  and 
do  it,  just  once,  for  the  pure  love  of  the  thing." 

Those  last  days  of  the  campaign  were,  indeed, 


32  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

luxuries  to  Kittrell  and  to  Edith,  days  of  work  and 
fun  and  excitement.  All  day  Kittrell  worked  on  his 
cartoons,  and  in  the  evening  they  went  to  Clayton's 
meetings.  The  experience  was  a  revelation  to  them 
both — the  crowds,  the  waiting  for  the  singing  of 
the  automobile's  siren,  the  wild  cheers  that  greeted 
Clayton,  and  then  his  speech,  his  appeals  to  the  best 
there  was  in  men.  He  had  never  made  such  speeches, 
and  long  afterward  Edith  could  hear  those  cheers 
and  see  the  faces  of  those  working-men  aglow  with 
the  hope,  the  passion,  the  fervent  religion  of  democ- 
racy. And  those  days  came  to  their  glad  climax 
that  night  when  they  met  at  the  office  of  the  Post  to 
receive  the  returns,  in  an  atmosphere  quivering  with 
excitement,  with  messenger  boys  and  reporters  com- 
ing and  going,  and  in  the  street  outside  an  immense 
crowd,  swaying  and  rocking  between  the  walls  on 
either  side,  with  screams  and  shouts  and  mad  huz- 
zas, and  the  wild  blowing  of  horns — all  the  hideous, 
happy  noise  an  American  election-night  crowd  can 
make. 

Late  in  the  evening  Clayton  had  made  his  way, 
somehow  unnoticed,  through  the  crowd,  and  entered 
the  office.  He  was  happy  in  the  great  triumph  he 


THE    GOLD    BRICK  33 

would  not  accept  as  personal,  claiming  it  always  for 
the  cause;  but  as  he  dropped  into  the  chair  Hardy 
pushed  toward  him,  they  all  saw  how  weary  he  was. 

Just  at  that  moment  the  roar  in  the  street  below 
swelled  to  a  mighty  crescendo,  and  Hardy  cried : 

"Look!" 

They  ran  to  the  window.  The  boys  up-stairs  who 
were  manipulating  the  stereopticon,  had  thrown  on 
the  screen  an  enormous  picture  of  Clayton,  the  por- 
trait Kittrell  had  drawn  for  his  cartoon. 

"Will  you  say  now  there  isn't  the  personal  note 
in  it?"  Edith  asked. 

Clayton  glanced  out  the  window,  across  the  dark, 
surging  street,  at  the  picture. 

"Oh,  it's  not  me  they're  cheering  for,"  he  said; 
"it's  for  Kit,  here." 

"Well,  perhaps  some  of  it's  for  him,"  Edith  ad- 
mitted loyally. 

They  were  silent,  seized  irresistibly  by  the  emo- 
tion that  mastered  the  mighty  crowd  in  the  dark 
streets  below.  Edith  was  strangely  moved.  Pres- 
ently she  could  speak: 

"Is  there  anything  sweeter  in  life  than  to  know 
that  you  have  done  a  good  thing — and  done  it  well  ?" 


34  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Yes,"  said  Clayton,  "just  one:  to  have  a  few 
friends  who  understand." 

"You  are  right,"  said  Edith.  "It  is  so  with  art, 
and  it  must  be  so  with  life;  it  makes  an  art  of  life." 

It  was  dark  enough  there  by  the  window  for  her 
to  slip  her  hand  into  that  of  Neil,  who  had  been 
musing  silently  on  the  crowd. 

"I  can  never  say  again,"  she  said  softly,  "that 
those  people  are  not  worth  sacrifice.  They  are  worth 
all;  they  are  everything;  they  are  the  hope  of  the 
world;  and  their  longings  and  their  needs,  and  the 
possibility  of  bringing  them  to  pass,  are  all  that  give 
significance  to  life." 

"That's  what  America  is  for,"  said  Clayton,  "and 
it's  worth  while  to  be  allowed  to  help  even  in  a  little 
way  to  make,  as  old  Walt  says,  'a  nation  of  friends, 
of  equals.' ' 


THE  HAS-BEEN 

AS  HOLMAN  loitered  along  the  pavement  that 
June  morning,  glad  once  more  to  be  back  in 
Springfield  after  so  many  years,  he  recalled  with  a 
sigh  another  morning,  far  gone,  when  first  he  had 
come  up  to  the  capital  of  his  state.  "A  morning  just 
like  this,"  he  was  thinking,  "all  green  and  sunny  and 
hopeful  and — pure.  My  God!"  But  he  put  aside 
regret;  it  was  enough  just  then  to  be  back  after  so 
many  years  of  absence — years  of  dingy  poverty 
which  had  kept  him  down  in  stupid  Jasper,  never 
once  able  to  get  back  during  the  session,  if  only  for 
a  day  to  see  the  boys ! — even  as  a  man  of  fifty,  with 
gray  hair  straggling  beneath  his  broad,  slouch  hat, 
with  his  long,  dusty  coat,  and  worn,  old  shoes,  that 
fell  softly  on  the  hot  sidewalk,  far  other  than  the 
young  representative  who  had  come  up  to  the  capital 
so  long  before.  In  Capitol  Avenue  he  had  the  state 

35 


36  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

house  in  full  view,  the  gray,  swelling  dome  still 
patiently  brooding  over  the  stupidities  and  trivial- 
ities which  the  bickering  human  beings,  running 
about  like  insects  below,  were  proudly  and  solemnly 
achieving.  The  little  flags  were  at  their  staffs  on 
either  wing.  Once,  at  the  sight  he  might  have  hur- 
ried, knowing  his  presence  to  be  required  beneath 
that  flag  on  the  house  wing.  No  need  now  to  hasten 
any  more ;  he  was  not  needed  there,  nor  anywhere  in 
the  world. 

The  sidewalk  was  filled  with  men  striding  like  the 
statesmen  they  felt  themselves  to  be,  and  none 
among  them  now  to  remember  him ;  but  he  walked 
with  them  under  the  railroad's  ugly  trestle,  past  the 
old  white  house  on  the  little  hill,  still  with  its  light- 
ning-rod to  keep  alive  one  of  the  best  of  Lincoln 
stories,  and  up  the  broad  walk  to  the  state  house.  In- 
side, the  cool  shades  of  the  big  pile  were  grateful  as 
they  used  to  be.  Through  the  open  doors  of  offices  he 
could  see  clerks  at  work,  or  at  least  at  desks,  some- 
how coming  off  victorious,  it  seemed,  in  their  des- 
perate business  of  holding  on  to  their  slippery,  eel- 
like,  political  jobs;  then  the  crowded  elevator — and 
the  inevitable  old  soldier  to  operate  it.  All  as  it 


THE    HAS-BEEN  37 

used  to  be ;  and  he,  like  some  risen  ghost  long  since 
laid  in  its  political  grave,  stalking  among  earthly 
presences  that  had  forgotten  him. 

The  doorkeepers  at  the  house  regarded  him  with 
the  official  misanthropy  and  distrust,  but  Holman 
quelled  their  glance,  pronounced  the  word  "Ex- 
member,"  and  so  passed  in  to  the  one  barren  prerog- 
ative left  him  out  of  the  years  of  former  power  and 
prestige. 

The  house,  on  the  order  of  senate  bills  on  first 
reading,  was  inattentive;  members  lolled  in  their 
seats,  read  newspapers,  talked,  gossiped,  wrote  let- 
ters, now  and  then  threw  paper  wads  at  one  another 
— incipiencies  of  that  horseplay  which  would  mark 
the  session's  close.  The  clerk  mumbled  the  said  senate 
bills  on  first  reading,  the  speaker  turned  in  his  chair 
to  talk  with  some  one  on  the  divan  behind  him, 
swinging  about  now  and  then  to  say,  "First  reading 
of  the  bill !"  and  to  tap  the  sounding-board  with  his 
gavel.  And,  of  them  all,  not  one  he  knew,  not  one 
to  recognize  him !  But,  yes,  there  was  one,  after  all ; 
just  one.  Down  the  center  aisle,  reclining  in  his 
chair  nonchalantly,  was  a  young  fellow,  almost  a 
boy  to  Holman's  disadvantage  point  of  years,  whose 


38  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

head,  turned  at  that  instant,  showed  a  profile  which, 
when  age  and  authority  should  visit  it,  would  cause 
one  to  remark  it ;  a  fair  brow,  strong  nose  and  good- 
humored  lips  parting  now  in  a  smile  at  some  remark 
a  member  across  the  aisle  had  made.  As  Holman 
looked  at  young  McCray  his  mind  went  back  to 
another  morning  in  another  June,  when  the  air 
came  in  through  the  tall,  open  windows  with  the 
breath  of  young  summer  in  Illinois,  the  very  odor 
of  the  prairie  flowers  themselves,  the  morning 
that  Baldwin  had  come  to  him.  And  now  McCray 
sat  there,  representing  his  old  district,  with  all  the 
opportunities,  dreams,  ambitions,  illusions  he  him- 
self had  had — and  lost. 

But  Holman  was  not  much  given  to  introspection 
— his  eye  was  not  long  turned  inward;  and  now, 
turned  outward,  it  lighted  on  a  white  head  far  down 
toward  the  front  of  the  house. 

"Why,  if  there  isn't,  after  all,  one  o'  the  old-tim- 
ers! Say,  young  fellow,"  he  said,  speaking  to  an 
assistant  sergeant-at-arms  who  had  been  standing 
near  and,  unable  to  identify  Holman  as  a  representa- 
tive of  any  railroad  or  other  interest  entitled  to 
respect  on  that  floor,  had  been  eying  him  with  some 


THE    HAS-BEEN  39 

suspicion.  "Say,"  said  Holman,  pointing  with  a 
long  forefinger,  "ain't  that  old  Ike  Bemis  down 
there — Bemis,  of  Tazewell?  Yes?  Well,  now,  just 
call  a  page-boy,  won't  you?  And  have  him  tell 
Bemis  an  old  friend  wants  to  see  him." 

Bemis  was,  in  his  way,  a  phenomenon  unpar- 
alleled in  politics;  he  had  been  in  the  house  before 
Holman  and  had  held  on,  minority  member  from  his 
district,  the  Republican  and  Democratic  machines 
working  harmoniously  together,  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century.  And  as  he  came  up  the  aisle  in  response 
to  Holman's  message  he  seemed  to  Holman  to  have 
changed  little;  only  his  hair  from  iron  gray  had 
grown  white,  and  his  face  was  not  so  clear  or  ruddy 
or  healthy  as  he  had  known  it.  He  was  dressed  as 
he  used  to  be  in  the  gray  clothes  that  made  him 
look  so  like  a  prosperous  farmer,  and  the  hand  he 
held  out  to  Holman  was,  by  some  mystery,  rough 
and  horny,  as  if  it  had  worked  indeed. 

"Why,  bless  the  Lord !"  he  cried,  "if  it  ain't  Jim 
Holman!" 

He  shook  Holman's  hand  with  genuine  pleasure 
and,  putting  his  arm  across  Holman's  shoulders,  led 
him  away  to  a  divan  under  the  gallery. 


40  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

They  sat  down  there  and  for  half  an  hour  chatted 
and  gossiped,  recalled  old  friends  and  associates  of 
legislatures  thati  were  gone,  discussed  them,  ac- 
counted for  them,  pursued  their  subsequent  histories 
in  politics  or  out  of  politics,  their  triumphs,  their 
failures  and  their  fates — in  short,  they  recon- 
structed their  own  little  world  and  caught  up  with 
the  times. 

"'Tain't  what  it  used  to  be,  Jim,"  said  Bemis  with 
an  old  man's  deploration  of  change.  "You  did  right 
to  get  out  of  it.  I  don't  want  any  more  of  it.  When 
this  session  closes  I'm  through ;  I  won't  run  again." 

Holman  was  not  greatly  impressed ;  politicians,  he 
knew,  were  always  making  their  last  campaign,  as 
sailors  were  always  making  their  last  voyage. 

"Sine  die  adjournment  next  week,  and  then  good- 
by  to  politics  for  me,"  Bemis  went  on.  "I'll  be  glad 
to  be  shut  of  it  all.  Nothing  in  it,  nothing  in  it." 
He  wagged  his  sage  head  sadly. 

"Anything — ah — doing  this  session  ?"  asked  Hol- 
man, glancing  sidewise  at  his  old  colleague. 

"No,  nothing  except  this  Chicago  street-car  bill. 
We  passed  it,  you.  know,  and  the  governor  vetoed  it. 
The  reformers  raised  an  awful  howl.  Comes  up — 


THE   HAS-BEEN  41 

let's  see — to-night,  I  reckon.  Going  to  try  to  pass 
it  over  the  governor's  veto." 

"Will  they  make  it?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  Looks  dubious.  The  senate's 
all  right,  of  course ;  it's  all  fixed  there,  but  the  house 
ain't  certain.  A  two-thirds  vote's  hard  to  get  these 
days.  Baldwin's  been  working  day  and  night — but 
I  don't  know ;  you  can't  tell  yet." 

Then  the  house  broke  into  new  confusion.  Hoi- 
man  knew  the  signs  well ;  a  roll-call  was  on.  Bemis 
pricked  his  ears  and  hurried  back  to  his  seat. 

Holman  was  glad  just  then  to  have  him  go,  for 
almost  at  the  mention  of  the  name  of  Baldwin  he 
had  happened  to  glance  toward  the  speaker's  chair; 
the  speaker  had  risen,  his  gavel  poised,  and  in  that 
instant  Holman  saw  the  man  on  the  speaker's  lounge, 
lolling  back  to  await  the  passing  of  the  interruption, 
and  recognized  Baldwin,  George  R.  Baldwin,  care- 
fully dressed  as  of  old,  suave,  elegant,  dignified,  all 
unchanged  save  that  his  hair  had  grown  a  bit  more 
gray,  though  only,  it  seemed,  to  lend  to  his  aspect 
new  dignity,  new  authority,  almost  refinement. 
Baldwin,  the  same  as  ever !  It  had  not  changed  him, 
evidently;  he  was  still  correct,  irreproachable,  re- 


42  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

spected,  received  everywhere — while  he,  Holman, 
had  come  to  this.  Sarah,  back  there  at  home,  amid 
the  dingy  poverty  and  drudgery  of  her  life;  and 
Baldwin's  wife,  doubtless,  welcome  in  all  society 
and  reigning  there !  Holman,  sick  of  the  scene,  got 
up,  plunged  his  hands  into  his  pockets  and  started 
out.  Near  the  door  he  turned  to  have  another 
glance.  Baldwin  had  slid  to  the  end  of  the  lounge 
and  was  talking  to  some  young  fellow — to  McCray. 

Holman  went  to  the  cigar-stand,  lighted  a  cigar, 
sauntered  out  into  the  rotunda  and  leaned  against 
the  brass  rail.  He  blew  out  streams  of  smoke  and 
through  squinting  little  eyes  watched  them  float 
away;  he  smoked  and  squinted  and  thought,  and 
what  he  saw  was  Baldwin,  the  lobbyist,  and  young 
McCray. 

Two  men  passed  on  their  way  over  to  the  senate 
chamber,  and  he  heard  one  of  them  pronounce  his 
name. 

" leaning  on  the  rail  there,  smoking. 

"Oh — I  forgot;  his  face  was  familiar,  too.  The 
old  Has-been  has  come  back  for  a  day !" 

It  was  Baldwin  who  spoke;  his  companion  was 
young  McCray. 


THE    HAS-BEEN  43 

"Ah,  yes!  An  old  Has-been,"  thought  Holman. 
Baldwin  said  that,  and  McCray!  They  said  that 
even  down  in  Jasper.  But  Baldwin,  he  was  no  Has- 
been  ;  it  had  not  affected  him  at  all. 

When  Holman  entered  the  house  that  afternoon 
he  was  sensible  of  a  change  in  the  atmosphere.  The 
new  element  was  one  he  recognized — skilled  as  of 
old  in  legislative  aeroscepsy — one  that  strangely  ex- 
cited him,  both  by  what  it  recalled  and  by  what  it 
portended;  there  were  tension,  alertness,  irritability 
and  suspense,  the  knowledge  of  an  evil,  sinister 
Presence,  known,  silent,  unrevealed,  but  appre- 
hended— a  Presence  expected,  even  desired,  yet 
dreaded ;  in  short,  the  psychic  condition  that  exists 
in  a  legislative  chamber  when  something  is  about  to 
come  off.  Holman,  standing  well  back  by  the  cloak- 
room, examining  the  house  with  expert  eye,  knew 
that  the  thing  was  imminent,  though  not  immediate. 
There  were  certain  signs  wanting.  The  speaker  sat 
calm,  but  he  was  twirling  his  gavel  nervously;  the 
leaders  were  restless  and  furtive,  but  they  had  not 
as  yet  got  every  man  in  his  seat.  McCray,  for  in- 
stance, was  absent. 


44  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

Holman  sauntered  carelessly  around  to  the  side 
on  which  Bemis  sat,  caught  the  old  man's  eye  and 
beckoned. 

"I  thought  they'd  get  that  bill  up,"  said  Holman, 
"and  I'd  see  a  little  fun;  but  there  seems  to  be  no 
chance  of  that.  Reckon  I'll  go." 

"There's  been  a  hitch,"  said  Bemis  in  a  low  tone. 

"Has,  heh?" 

"Yes,"  said  Bemis;  "the  boys  thought  they  had 
it  fixed,  but  Wimbleton  switched;  told  O'Leary  so 
at  noon.  Either  the  governor  got  around  him  or 
he  got  scared." 

"Need  only  one  vote?"  surmised  Holman.  Then 
Bemis,  as  if  a  thought  had  struck  him,  drew  close 
and  put  his  lips  to  Holman's  ear : 

"You  know  that  young  McCray  from  your  dis- 
trict?" 

"Sure." 

"Well,  now,  Jim,  if  you  could  fix  him — you  might 
get  in  on  this  thing.  He  won't  do  business  with  any 
of  us.  I  don't  know  exactly,  but  I  should  think 
there'd  be  for  you  and  him  at  least — "  He  put  his 
lips  quite  into  Holman's  ear,  and  Holman  bent 
lower;  and  Bemis  whispered  again.  Holman  did 


THE    HAS-BEEN  45 

not  move  a  muscle.  Bemis  withdrew  a  little  and 
looked  at  him. 

"I  don't  know  McCray  very  well,"  said  Holman 
presently.  "He's  a  youngster,  and  I've  been  out  of 
politics  a  long  time.  But  I  might  have  a  little  talk 
with  him.  I  can't  promise,  though — an  old  Has- 
been  like  me,  you  know."  He  laughed  a  small  bitter 
laugh. 

"Oh,  you !"  said  Bemis  striking  him  softly  on  the 
shoulder.  "You  a  Has-been!  Why,  Jim,  you're 
the  slickest  man  in  southern  Illinois — when  you 
want  to  be !" 

Holman  found  McCray  in  the  Leland  bar-room. 
The  young  man  was  plainly  in  some  mental  stress, 
his  hair  matted  to  his  brow,  his  face  moist  with 
perspiration,  and  drawn,  and  in  his  eyes  an  utter 
weariness. 

"Just  the  man  I  was  looking  for,"  said  Holman. 
"I  came  to  see  you  about  a  little  matter  down  in 
Jasper ;  some  interests  I  represent — constits  of  yours 
— and  I've  got  to  hurry  back.  So,  just  give  me  a 
minute;  I'll  not  keep  you  long." 

McCray  looked  at  his  watch.     "I" — he  hesitated 


46  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

— "I  must  get  over  to  the  house ;  I'm  late,  anyway. 
I  was  detained — " 

"Yes,  I  know,"  said  Holman,  "but  I've  got  to  see 
you.  It's  something  you're  interested  in,  anyway. 
If  you'll  just  walk  along  a  little  way  with  me." 

Once  outside,  Holman  kept  on  out  Sixth  Street, 
and  McCray,  wondering  somewhat,  did  not  demur. 

"McCray,  you  don't  know  me  well,"  Holman 
began;  "I'm  an  old-timer — a  Has-been,  as  I  over- 
heard a  man  say  this  morning.  You're  a  young 
man;  you  come  from  my  district — or,  perhaps,  I'd 
better  say  I  come  from  yours.  I  came  here  one  ses- 
sion, just  as  you  have  done,  from  old  Jasper,  and  I 
served,  in  all,  four  sessions.  During  that  time  I 
saw  a  lot  of  life  and  of  men;  I  learned  a  lot,  too, 
and  then  I  gave  it  up — and  quit.  This  morning  I 
came  back  for  a  little  holiday,  and  I  strolled  over  to 
the  house  to  see  how  the  old  place  looked  once  more, 
just  as  all  the  Has-beens  do;  they  always  manage  to 
get  back,  some  way  or  another,  every  session;  it's 
a  habit,  a  fever,  a  disease — get  it  once,  a  fellow 
never  gets  over  it.  Well,  this  morning,  as  I  stood 
there  looking  around  I  saw  you;  and  that  and  one 
thing  and  another  reminded  me  of  something.  I 


THE   HAS-BEEN  47 

saw  you  sitting  there — young,  ambitious,  bright, 
with  the  world  before  you — and,  well,  my  boy,  I 
took  a  kind  of  liking  for  you  all  of  a  sudden;  but 
that's  neither  here  nor  there.  What  I  was  reminded 
of,  curiously  enough,  was  another  young  fellow  I 
used  to  know  years  ago — a  fellow  that  didn't  look 
so  much  like  you,  perhaps,  and  yet  who  was  like  you 
in  many  ways. 

"It  must  have  been,  let's  see,  back  in  the — well,  no 
matter,  I  don't  exactly  recall  just  now,  and  it  isn't 
material.  But  this  young  fellow  came  up  from 
down  our  way  to  take  his  seat  for  the  first  time  in 
the  legislature.  He  was  a  young  lawyer,  smart, 
good-looking,  a  fellow  every  one  liked.  He  had  the 
gift  of  the  gab;  he  could  make  a  rattling  speech, 
was  strong  on  the  stump  and  good  before  a  jury. 
Everybody  wanted  to  see  him  succeed.  He  was 
ambitious — ambitious  as  Lincoln,  ambitious  as  the 
devil.  His  ambitions  were  not  selfish — that  is,  not 
so  damned  selfish.  He  was  no  reformer,  nothing 
like  that;  but  he  really  wanted  to  help  his  people, 
wanted  to  do  something  to  make  life  a  little  easier, 
a  little  better  for  the  average  fellow — like  those  he 
knew  back  home.  He  didn't  have,  perhaps,  any  very 


48  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

clear  idea  how  he  was  going  to  do  this,  but  he 
wanted  to  do  it  somehow,  and,  vaguely  enough,  I 
reckon,  he  felt  that  the  chance  would  turn  up.  Back 
home,  too,  there  was  a  girl — you  got  a  girl,  Mc- 
Cray?" 

The  young  man,  startled  by  the  abrupt  question, 
turned  up  to  Holman,  who  shambled  along  a  head 
taller  than  he,  a  face  that  went  red ;  a  smile  came  to 
it,  then,  suddenly,  it  went  gray  and  he  turned  away. 

"Beg  your  pardon,"  said  Holman,  "that's  none  of 
my  business,  of  course.  But  this  fellow  of  mine,  he 
had  a  girl  back  there.  I  knew  about  it;  we  were 
young  members,  first  term,  and  he  used  to  tell  me 
things.  And  he  wanted  to  marry  this  girl  and  make 
her  happy.  He  thought,  you  see,  that  by  being 
something,  doing  something  in  the  world,  he  could 
do  that." 

They  were  by  this  time  far  out  Sixth  Street,  at 
the  edge  of  town;  a  little  farther  on  lay  the  open 
country.  They  came  to  a  pasture  with  a  broken 
fence  and  a  tree. 

"Let's  sit  down  here,"  Holman  said,  "and  rest, 
and  I'll  get  on  with  my  story." 

They  sat  side  by  side  on  the  bank  at  the  roots  of 


THE   HAS-BEEN  49 

the  elm,  and  Holman,  having  finished  his  cigar  and 
being  a  man  who  seemed  to  require  tobacco  in  some 
form  every  moment  of  the  day,  drew  out  a  long 
plug  and  a  knife  and  cut  a  piece  and  put  it  comfort- 
ably into  his  mouth. 

"Chew?"  he  said,  proffering  tobacco  and  knife. 
McCray  shook  his  head,  but  lighted  a  cigarette. 
And  the  old  and  the  new  generation  sat  there  side 
by  side  on  the  bank. 

"Interested  ?"  asked  Holman. 

"Yes;  go  on." 

"Well,  this  young  fellow  I'm  telling  you  of — the 
legislature  was  just  a  stepping-stone  to  him;  that's 
what  he  thought  and  that's  what  everybody  thought ; 
beyond  that  were  congress,  governor,  senator,  every- 
thing. He  went  right  ahead,  was  popular  and  influ- 
ential, got  good  committees,  and  when  he  got  up  to 
speak  the  house  grew  quiet — you've  seen  it  that  way 
yourself — and  he  worked  and  studied,  and  back 
home  there  was  the  girl — and  they  wanted  to  get 
married.  But  he  was  poor — mighty  poor." 

Holman  leaned  over,  stretched  out  his  long,  thin 
arm — McCray  noted  the  frayed  cuffbands — and 
plucked  a  spear  of  young  grass,  pulled  the  thin, 


50  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

transparent,  whitish-green  blade  out  of  its  delicate 
sheath  and,  squinting  his  eyes,  examined  it  minutely, 
as  if  it  were  the  most  engrossing  object  of  study  in 
the  world. 

"A  legislature,  McCray,"  he  went  on,  "is  the 
damnedest  thing  in  the  world,  the  rottenest,  most 
demoralizing,  hell-fire  sort  of  institution  there  is.  All 
politics  is  that  way,  no  matter  where  you  find  it. 
Sometimes  I  think  you  can't  get  within  forty  rows  o' 
apple  trees  of  it  without  being  polluted.  A  man,  to 
go  to  a  legislature  and  stay  there  any  time  and  come 
out  whole  and  safe  and  sound,  has  to  be  made  of 
pure  gold.  Now,  this  young  friend  of  mine,  he 
was,  as  I've  said,  all  right  at  heart,  and  pretty  strong, 
too,  most  ways;  good  family,  good  blood  and  all 
that;  and  back  home  there,  in  safe  surroundings, 
he'd  'ave  got  along  all  right  till  the  end.  But  in  the 
legislature  a  fellow's  away  from  home,  away  from 
all  his  customary  moorings,  and  most  of  the  mem- 
bers get  it  into  their  heads  that  at  the  capital  all  the 
rules  are  suspended,  and  I  reckon  they  are — that's 
about  what  government,  as  we  administer  it, 
amounts  to. 

"No  one  from  home  ever  shows  up  there.     The 


THE    HAS-BEEN  51 

only  ones  that  come  around  come  to  get  some- 
thing for  themselves,  and  it's  always  something  they 
have  no  right  to  and  oughtn't  to  have.  They  come 
with  all  kinds  of  plausible  reasons  and  lies  and 
temptations — damned  sneaking,  hypocritical,  white- 
washed sepulchers!  Eminent  and  respectable  citi- 
zens, best  people  and  all  that !  And  unless  a  fellow 
has  his  eyes  wide  open  all  the  time,  has  his  principles 
clear  and  fixed  and  knows  enough  to  apply  'em  every 
minute,  knows  what  a  bunco  game  it  all  is,  and  is 
of  pure  gold  besides — as  I  said — why,  he  gets  all 
tangled  up  and  lost — yes,  lost.  It  pretty  much  all 
comes  from  the  cities.  We  poor  jays  from  the 
country  districts  don't  know  anything  about  the 
cities ;  we  take  what  they  tell  us,  or  did  in  my  time. 
We  think  if  we  just  pass  a  few  laws  to  make  our 
fellow-citizens  in  the  cities  good,  regulate  their  beer 
for  'em  and  all  that,  that  nothing  else  is  required  of 
us;  so  these  fellows  come  down  from  the  city  and 
get  us  to  do  their  dirty  work  for  them.  In  those 
days  there  was  a  fellow  here,  a  lobbyist,  a  good-look- 
ing man,  about  the  size  and  favor  of — well,  Bald- 
win back  there — saw  him  talking  to  you  this  morn- 
ing— same  kind  of  a  man  exactly,  smooth,  genial, 


52  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

polished,  well-dressed,  polite,  good  fellow,  and  all 
that. 

"Now,  Baldwin — I  mean  the  fellow — well,  damn 
it !"  Holman  suddenly  exploded  in  his  exasperation, 
"it  was  Baldwin!  He  had  a  bill  he  was  trying  to 
pass,  a  crooked  bill,  of  course,  one  of  those  bills  like 
this  street-car  bill  I  heard  of  to-day,  to  take  some- 
thing that  by  rights  belonged  to  the  people  of  the 
city,  a  street,  or  the  ground  under  a  street,  or  the  air 
over  a  street,  or  the  room  in  the  middle  of  a  street, 
and  give  it  to  half  a  dozen  eminently  respectable  and 
pious  citizens  to  use  for  themselves  and  exploit  and 
get  rich  on.  Baldwin  was  trying  to  pass  that  bill,  and 
the  session  was  nearly  done,  and  he  needed  just  one 
vote.  And  he  looked  around  and  he  settled  on  this 
young  friend  of  mine;  he  knew  his  hopes,  his  wants, 
his  necessities — knew  all  about  him,  for  that's  Bald- 
win's business  and  his  way.  I  needn't  go  into  the 
details ;  he  worked  with  him  a  whole  day  and  nearly 
a  whole  night;  explained  that  it  was  really  a  good 
thing  for  the  city,  that  this  young  fellow's  constits 
were  not  interested  in  the  city,  anyway,  didn't  know 
anything  about  it,  nor  care  anything  about  it.  'It 
can't  hurt  you,'  Baldwin  would  say.  'Your  people 


THE    HAS-BEEN  53 

won't  know  or  care;  of  course,  if  it  was  something 
they  were  interested  in  it  might  be  different' — and 
all  that.  And  then,  finally,  'way  in  the  night,  when 
the  young  fellow  was  worn  down  in  will,  and  tired 
and  weak  and  dazed  anyway,  Baldwin  began  to 
count  the  money  down  on  the  table,  among  the  stink- 
ing whisky  glasses  and  cigar  butts,  thousand-dollar 
bills,  green  as  that  grass  there,  one — two — three — 
like  that."  McCray,  with  a  kind  of  fascination, 
watched  Holman  as  with  slow  gesture  of  his  long 
hands  he  turned  over,  as  it  were,  and  laid  down  one 
after  another  those  thousand-dollar  bills.  "And  the 
young  man  fell,"  said  Holman  at  last.  And  then  he 
was  silent,  his  gaze  fixed  afar  on  some  light  across 
the  fields. 

"Well,"  Holman  resumed,  "Baldwin  was  right 
in  one  way,  at  any  rate;  the  people,  the  young  fel- 
low's people  down  home,  didn't  care.  They  never 
do  care;  they  don't  take  the  trouble.  They  never 
knew,  anyway,  and  they  elected  him  again  and  re- 
elected  him.  And  he  got  married  and  things  seemed 
to  go  along  all  right  with  him ;  you  would  have  said 
he  was  to  be  envied.  But,  while  nothing  seemed  to 
change  outside,  something  did  change  inside  the 


54  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

young  man ;  and  the  worst  of  it  was,  it  was  a  change 
that  he  didn't  know  or  realize.  It  was  like  some 
disease,  working  away,  working  away  there  inside 
of  him,  without  any  pain  or  any  symptoms  even ;  he 
had  no  idea  of  it.  But  there  it  was,  working  away, 
working  away.  He  found,  at  first,  that  it  was  easy 
enough  to  get  money,  and  he  got  it  and  he  spent  it 
and  it  never  did  him  any  good,  never  a  bit,  neither 
him  nor  his  family.  Easy  money,  they  call  it;  but 
there's  no  such  thing.  All  money,  even  easy  money, 
is  hard ;  you  got  to  pay  somehow,  you  got  to  pay ! 

"He  changed  by  slow  degrees ;  first  he  got  careless 
and  slovenly  in  his  thoughts,  and,  after  a  while, 
didn't  think  much  anyway,  and  couldn't;  he  just 
talked  and  talked  and  talked  and  made  loud  speeches 
— became  a  windbag,  a  blatherskite,  a  bore  and  a 
nuisance  in  the  land,  to  himself  and  everybody. 
There's  a  lot  of  them  in  this  land;  all  they  need  to 
make  a  speech  is  room  enough  to  work  their  jaws  in. 
His  old  wishes  and  longings  to  be  of  some  use  in 
the  world  died  out  of  him;  he  had  no  aims,  no 
mark  to  head  for,  no  place  to  go.  He  became  in- 
effectual ;  after  while  all  there  was  to  him  was  that 
one  vote  of  his  in  the  house,  and  by  and  by  that 


THE    HAS-BEEN  55 

wasn't  worth  much;  it  kept  declining  in  value,  he 
got  cheaper  and  cheaper,  and  finally — just  naturally 
petered  out. 

"Then,  when  he  was  slouchy  in  morals  and  mind 
and  character,  he  got  slouchy  in  person;  his  habits 
weren't  bad,  perhaps;  he  was  no  drunkard  or  any- 
thing like  that,  but  just — oh,  sloppy,  every  way. 
And  his  wife,  his  little  wife — she  was  a  fine,  pretty 
girl,  McCray,  when  he  married  her — she,  of  course, 
had  to  pay,  too,  along  with  him;  he  dragged  her 
down.  She  was  patient  and  kind  and  always  hope- 
ful, but  they  were  poor,  and  under  the  stress  of 
their  necessities  he  would  get  peevish  and  cross,  and 
sometimes  when,  say,  a  Saturday  night  would  come 
and  there  wasn't  anything  in  the  house  to  eat — well, 
he'd  look  at  the  children  and  get  mad — mad  at  him- 
self, primarily,  though  he  didn't  say  so  or  admit  it 
even  to  himself — and  he'd  take  it  out  in  nasty,  mean 
ways  with  her  and  the  children.  Finally,  she  gave 
up;  she  didn't  know  why,  she  never  knew  what  had 
happened,  or,  if  she  did,  she  never  even  hinted  it — 
and  the  whole  family  was  just  going  down  to  hell 
and  the  devil.  There  wasn't  any  outward  tragedy  to 
make  it  striking  or  dramatic  or  even  interesting. 


56  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"And  then,  after  everybody  half  knew  or  half 
guessed,  and  had  ceased  to  respect  him,  he  came 
back  here  to  Springfield  once,  as  we  all  do,  and  hap- 
pened to  see  Baldwin,  and  found  him  the  same, 
scarcely  a  day  older,  though  he  himself  was  gray 
and  withered.  It  hadn't  hurt  Baldwin ;  he  was  well- 
dressed,  respectable,  popular,  received  everywhere — 
clubs,  society,  church  and  all,  just  as  the  men  were 
whose  dirty  money  Baldwin  handled.  And  Bald- 
win's wife,  she  wasn't  old  and  sad  and  hopeless;  she 
was  going  out  in  society,  president  of  a  big  woman's 
club,  talked  about  safe  little  reforms,  charities  and 
philanthropies.  And  Baldwin's  daughters  were  over 
in  Europe  getting  the  last  finish  on  their  educa- 
tion." 

Holman  had  a  feeling  that  McCray  was  no  longer 
listening  and,  glancing  aside,  saw  that  McCray's 
face  was  buried  in  his  hands.  And  with  pity  in 
his  long,  gray  face  he  looked  at  him  a  little  while, 
then  laid  a  hand  on  McCray's  shoulder. 

"Do  you  know,"  he  said,  "why  I  told  you  this 
story?  You  see,  I  didn't  want  to  make  you  feel 
bad;  I  only  wanted  to  show  you.  Because  there's 
a  lot  in  you — a  big,  beautiful  future." 


THE    HAS-BEEN  57 

"Oh,  don't  say  that,"  cried  McCray.  "All  but 
that  last — all  but  that  last." 

"Why  not  that?" 

"Because  it's  too  late.  Oh,  Holman,  it's  too  late 
— too  late!  If  it  were  only  yesterday!  But  now — 
it's  too  late !" 

And  McCray  bent  forward,  bowed  in  pain,  and 
wept. 

Holman  waited  until  the  boy's  grief  subsided,  and 
then,  by  degrees,  he  got  the  story.  To  McCray  it 
was  an  irreclaimable  and  tragic  wreck  of  life.  But 
to  Holman,  in  the  broader  vision  his  own  sins  had 
made  possible,  and  in  some  of  his  judgments  of  men, 
perhaps  too  broad — if,  indeed,  that  may  be — the 
case  was  not  at  all  hopeless.  He  had  not,  it  is  true, 
been  prepared  for  a  revelation  so  complete  and  dam- 
aging, but  it  presented  to  him  no  irrevocable  aspect. 
McCray,  with  the  proclivity  of  youth  to  fixed  and 
fated  facts,  saw  the  thing  consummated  and  com- 
plete, the  contract  wholly  executed ;  but  Holman  did 
not  regard  it  as  even  executory,  and  he  cited  for 
McCray  the  old  adage  about  the  bad  bargain. 

"We'll  just  give  the  stuff  back  to  Baldwin." 

"Before?" 


58  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"No,"  said  Holman  stoutly,  "afterward.  After 
the  vote;  we'll  have  that  satisfaction.  Keep  him 
on  the  hooks." 

"Well,"  said  McCray.  "But  here,  you  take  it. 
It — burns — "  He  gave  to  Holman  a  roll  of  bills, 
and  sighed  in  relief.  "You  have  saved  me,"  he  said ; 
"you  have  saved  my  soul." 

"Oh,  to  hell  with  your  soul!"  Holman  said,  with 
more  orthodoxy  than  he  was  accustomed  to  evince. 
He  was  not  sufficiently  accustomed  to  the  highly 
moral  to  relish  its  too  bald  expression;  perhaps  his 
experience  had  been  of  one  other  as  yet  unrecog- 
nized benefit — it  had  made  him  wholesomely  afraid 
of  cant,  and  whatever  good  his  spiritual  adventure 
of  that  day  had  done,  or  was  to  do  him,  he  was  in 
little  danger  of  becoming  a  Pharisee. 

Greggerson,  the  clerk  of  the  house,  in  shirt- 
sleeves, a  handkerchief  stuffed  into  his  collar,  had 
himself  taken  the  reading-desk  that  night.  Above 
him  the  speaker,  bent  forward,  watched  the  pro- 
ceedings like  some  bird  of  prey,  smiting  his  desk 
sharply  with  his  gavel  now  and  then,  or  pointing  it 
fiercely  at  some  one.  Above  the  speaker,  in  placid 


THE    HAS-BEEN  59 

folds,  was  the  flag,  and  from  their  large  canvases 
on  either  side  of  the  house,  Lincoln  and  Douglas 
surveyed  the  scene  from  the  calm  altitude  of  their 
secure  place  in  American  statesmanship. 

When  the  bill  had  come  over  from  the  senate  half 
an  hour  before,  the  crowd  had  rushed  over  with  it, 
burst  into  the  house  and  pushed  down  the  aisle, 
choking  the  passage.  Holman  saw  several  senators 
come  over  to  see  the  end;  he  saw  the  governor's 
private  secretary,  and  old  Benson,  the  governor's 
political  manager,  and — Baldwin,  suave  and  bland 
as  usual,  yet,  as  Holman  could  see  on  a  second  closer 
look,  intensely  anxious  and  concerned.  He  was  paler 
than  Holman  had  ever  seen  him.  The  air  of  the 
chamber  was  hot  and  fetid;  there  was  a  low,  omi- 
nous grumbling.  Dalby  was  on  his  feet  on  the  Re- 
publican side,  Quinn  on  the  Democratic — the  pro- 
gram under  Baldwin's  eye  and  the  speaker's  would 
be  hurried  through.  In  the  curious  way  in  which  se- 
crets cease  to  be  secrets  and  permeate  the  mind  of 
the  mass,  it  was  generally  known  how  every  man 
would  vote,  and  it  was  understood  that  the  climax, 
somehow,  would  come  with  the  calling  of  the  name 
of  McCray,  of  Jasper.  The  roll-call  moved  slowly 


60  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

on  down  the  alphabet;  Greggerson's  voice  re- 
sounded; its  boom  could  have  been  heard  through 
open  windows  three  blocks  away : 

"Lyendorf!" 

"Aye." 

"Lynn,  of  Sangamon!" 

"No." 

"Lynn,  of  Vermilion!" 

"No." 

"McBroom!" 

"No." 

"McCoy!" 

"Aye." 

"McCray!" 

Holman  strained  forward  with  the  crowd. 
McCray  hesitated,  looked  up,  then  shouted : 

"No!" 

There  was  a  sharp  volley  of  applause,  a  clapping 
of  hands  which  had  in  it  perhaps,  a  certain  too  self- 
righteous  quality;  and  there  were  human  groans 
and  hoots,  and  at  his  elbow  Holman  heard  an  oath 
and  turned  to  face  Baldwin.  The  face  of  the  lobby- 
ist was  white  with  rage  and  moist  with  fine  globules 
of  perspiration,  and  there  were  revealed  to  Holman 


THE    HAS-BEEN  61 

in  the  brilliant,  new  illuminations  of  that  moment 
certain  lines  that  once  had  not  been  there,  lines  not 
drawn  by  age,  and  Holman  saw  them  with  a  fierce, 
vindictive  joy. 

But  McCray  was  coming,  battling  his  way  down 
the  aisle,  escaping  the  congratulations,  curses, 
praises,  objurgations  of  the  men  who  crowded  about 
him.  He  got  away  from  them  and  came  back,  and, 
as  he  took  Holman's  hand,  his  tired,  drawn  face  was 
touched  with  a  smile.  Baldwin,  there  beside  them, 
saw  it,  stared  at  Holman  incredulously  and  said : 

"Well,  I'll  be  damned!" 

But  Holman  had  no  attention  for  Baldwin  then. 

"Let's  get  out  of  this,"  he  said  to  McCray. 

And  when,  out  of  that  weltering  chaos,  they 
found  themselves  in  the  rotunda,  in  the  mysterious 
semi-gloom  that  filled  its  great,  inverted  bowl,  the 
gloom  which  all  the  electric  lights  could  not  wholly 
dissipate,  Holman  quickly  drew  his  hand  from  his 
pocket,  pressed  it  into  McCray's,  and  said : 

"Here,  this  belongs  to — "  Holman  hesitated,  as 
at  a  new  point  in  ethics. 

"To  Baldwin,"  said  McCray.  "Yes,"  he  went  on 
wearily,  "I'll  give  it  back  to  him." 


62  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"To  think  of  an  old  Has-been  like  me,"  said  Hoi- 
man,  "that  hasn't  seen  so  much  easy  money  in  a 
coon's  age — and  to  go  toting  it  around  all  day  in  his 
pocket !  McCray,  I'm  afraid  I'm  getting  too  damned 
civic!  I'll  be  a  reformer  next,  and  back  in  politics!" 
He  laughed  again.  "We'll  wait  here  a  little.  Bald- 
win'll  be  along,  and  I'll  stay  and  see  you  safely 
through  it." 

Baldwin  was  coming  even  then,  and  in  a  moment 
espied  them  there  by  the  rail.  He  had  recovered 
himself;  the  mask  of  years  could  not  be  lowered 
long;  he  came  on  leisurely,  even  pausing  to  light  a 
cigarette.  Holman  hailed  him : 

"Lost  out,  didn't  you,  George?" 

"So  it  seems,"  Baldwin  replied.  "When  you  do 
business  on  honor  you  must  expect  to  be  betrayed 
once  in  a  while.  It's  all  in  the  game.  But  where  do 
you  come  in,  Jim — an  old  back  number  like  you  ?" 

"Does  seem  funny,  doesn't  it  ?  An  old  Has-been 
like  me !  Well,  I  saw  a  good  thing  coming  off  and 
I  declared  myself  in.  But  McCray  has  a  little  busi- 
ness with  you,  and  when  you're  through  with  him, 
maybe  I  can  make  it  plain  to  you." 

"Oh,  I  have  no  further  business  with  Mr.  McCray. 


THE    HAS-BEEN  63 

I'm  quite  through  with  him."  And  he  turned  his 
back  deliberately  on  the  young  man. 

McCray  bit  his  lip,  then  remembered  and  became 
humble,  and,  putting  forth  his  hand,  said : 

"Here — here's  your — money." 

Baldwin  turned,  took  the  money,  thrust  it  care- 
lessly into  his  pocket,  and  said : 

"I  can't  count  it  here,  of  course.  I  presume  it's 
all  there." 

"Yes,"  said  Holman,  "it's  all  there.  Such  work 
is  done  on  honor,  you  know." 

"Thank  you."  Baldwin  delicately  drew  on  his 
cigarette,  blew  the  smoke  upward.  "But — that  ques- 
tion, Jim,  that  one  unanswered  question.  Where  do 
you  come  in  ?  What  is  there  in  this  for  you  ?" 

Holman  looked  at  him  from  top  to  toe  with  a 
long,  cold,  steady  gaze. 

"Well,  George,"  he  began  slowly,  "for  me  there's 
nothing  in  it,  in  the  way  you  think — in  the  only 
terms  you  can  think  in,  I  mean.  There  is,  however, 
in  another  way,  a  lot  in  it ;  a  lot  I  haven't  dreamed  of 
for  years.  All  day,  while  arranging  and  planning 
this — the  idea  came  to  me  suddenly  this  morning — 
I've  been  looking  forward  to  this  moment,  thinking 


64  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

of  what  I'd  say  and  what  satisfaction  I'd  have  in 
saying  it.  I  thought  that  that  satisfaction  would 
pay  me  for  all  you've  done — for  all  you've  tried  to 
do  to  this  boy  here — for  all — no,  damn  it!  not  for 
all! — all  hell  and  eternity  couldn't  pay  you  for  all 
you've  done — to  other  boys  like  him.  But  now,  as 
I  look  at  your  face  and  study  it,  I  see  that  you  just 
couldn't  understand,  that's  all;  you  have  lost  the 
ability  to  understand — and — well,  George,  that  mere 
fact  will  pay  you,  so  I  won't  try  to  say  it.  I'll  say 
only  good-by,  and  when  you  get  home  to  that  wife 
and  those  daughters  of  yours — just  remember  that 
Jim  Holman  asked  you  how  you  could  look  them  in 
the  eyes.  Do  that  and  maybe — you'll  understand." 

Baldwin  stared  at  him;  the  mask  shifted  an 
instant,  then,  instantly  restored,  he  turned  away. 

"He  looks  old,  after  all,"  said  Holman.  "It  has 
changed  him,  too.  .  .  ."  He  drew  out  his  watch. 
"I  can  catch  that  midnight  train  on  the  Alton.  I'm 
going  to  get  out  of  here  now;  I'm  going  home  to 
old  Jasper.  There's  a  little  woman  there  I  want  to 
see,  a  little  woman  and  some  children,  and  I'm 
going  home — now,  at  last,  to  look  them  in  the  eyes." 


WHAT  WILL  BECOME 

OF  ANNIE? 

SPRING  had  come  back  to  Leadam  Street.  The 
moist  cobblestones  had  steamed  in  the  new  sun 
all  the  afternoon ;  sparrows  were  sweeping  up  to  the 
eaves,  trailing  strings  and  long  straws  after  them; 
from  the  back  porches  of  the  flats  were  loud,  awak- 
ing, tinny  sounds,  breaking  the  long  silence.  The 
clank  of  the  cable-cars  was  borne  over  the  roofs, 
clearly  now  in  the  damp,  heavy  atmosphere;  from 
somewhere  came  the  jingle  of  a  street  piano.  Float- 
ing down  the  mild  afternoon,  came  the  deep,  mellow 
note  of  some  big  propeller,  loosing  her  winter  moor- 
ings at  last  and  rousing  to  greet  the  tug  that  would 
tow  her  out  of  the  narrow  river.  Kelley,  the  police- 
man, strolled  along  the  sidewalk,  with  his  hands 
locked  behind  him,  his  nose  in  the  air,  sniffing 
eagerly  and  pleasurably.  He  had  left  off  his  skirted 

65 


66  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

overcoat,  and  changed  his  clumsy  cap  for  his  hel- 
met. 

Annie  had  sat  at  her  window  all  the  afternoon, 
but,  as  the  spring  day  wore  toward  its  close,  she 
began  to  realize  that  only  the  melancholy,  and  none 
of  the  promise  of  this  first  spring  day  had  touched 
her.  She  had  thrown  open  the  window,  to  test  the 
quality  of  the  air.  Now  and  then  a  warm  breath 
came  wandering  in  off  the  prairies,  though  when  it 
met  the  cold,  persistent  wind  from  the  lake,  it  hesi- 
tated, and  timidly  turned  back.  But  Annie  would 
not  let  herself  doubt  that  the  spring  had  come.  She 
knew  that  in  time  the  prairie  wind  would  woo  its 
way  until  it  would  be  playing  with  the  waves  of  the 
lake  itself,  the  little  waves  that  danced  all  day,  blue 
and  white,  in  the  sunshine.  And  then  the  summer 
would  come,  and  on  Sunday  afternoons  Jimmy 
would  take  her  out  to  Lincoln  Park,  and  they  would 
have  their  supper  at  Fisher's  Garden. 

Leadam  Street  was  dull  enough  on  week  days ;  on 
Sundays  it  was  wholly  mournful. 

Once  Annie  saw  a  woman,  with  a  shawl  over  her 
head  and  a  tin  bucket  in  her  hand,  go  into  Engle- 
hardt's  place,  down  the  street.  The  woman  went  in 


WHAT   WILL   BECOME   OF   ANNIE?     67 

furtively,  and  brushed  hastily  through  the  "Family 
Entrance,"  though  why  could  not  be  told.  She  went 
there  nearly  every  hour  of  every  day.  Then  Annie 
was  left  alone.  She  did  not  turn  inward  to  the  flat ; 
that  was  too  still  and  lonesome,  and  it  was  growing 
dark  now,  as  the  shadows  gathered.  She  heard  the 
strenuous  gongs  of  the  cable-cars  over  in  State 
Street,  and  she  could  imagine  the  crowds,  gay  from 
their  Sunday  holiday,  that  rilled  them,  clinging  even 
to  the  running-boards.  She  might  have  gone  out 
and  been  with  them,  as  every  one  else  in  the  street 
seemed  to  have  done,  but  she  would  not  for  worlds 
have  been  away  from  home  when  Jimmy  came.  She 
heard  the  jingle  of  the  street  piano,  too ;  she  wished 
it  would  come  down  that  way.  She  would  gladly 
have  emptied  her  purse  for  the  Dago. 

It  was  not  unusual  for  Annie  to  be  left  alone,  and 
she  had  grown  used  to  it — almost;  as  used  as  a 
woman  can — even  the  wife  of  a  politician.  Jimmy 
had  told  her  that  she  must  not  worry  at  any  of  his 
absences;  an  alderman  could  never  tell  what  might 
detain  him.  She  had  but  a  vague  notion  of  the 
things  that  might  detain  an  alderman,  though  she 
had  no  doubt  of  their  importance.  At  times  she 


68  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

thought  she  felt  an  intimate  little  charm  in  the  im- 
portance that  thus  reflected  itself  upon  her,  but, 
nevertheless,  her  heart  was  never  quite  easy  until 
she  heard  Jimmy's  step  on  the  stair  and  his  key  in 
the  latch,  and  then — joy  came  to  the  little  flat,  and 
stayed  there,  trembling  and  fearful,  until  he  went 
away  again.  She  had  grown  to  be  so  dependent  on 
Jimmy.  Ever  since  she  had  been  graduated  from 
the  convent  his  great,  strong  personality  had  stood 
between  her  and  the  world,  so  that,  as  her  girlhood 
had  merged  into  womanhood,  she  had  hardly  recog- 
nized the  change,  and  she  remained  a  girl  still, 
alone  but  for  him;  he  was  her  whole  life.  She  had 
doubted  his  entrance  into  politics  at  first,  just  as 
she  had  doubted  his  going  into  the  saloon  business, 
though  she  scarcely  understood  either  in  their  var- 
ious significances.  Father  Daugherty  had  told  her 
she  was  a  fortunate  girl  to  have  Jimmy  for  a  hus» 
band,  and  that  had  been  enough.  Her  only  objec- 
tion was  that  politics  seemed  to  keep  Jimmy  away 
from  home  oftener  than  the  old  work  in  the  pack- 
ing-house used  to;  she  had  trembled  at  it  at  times, 
and  at  times  had  grown  a  little  frightened.  His 
success  in  politics  had  pleased  her,  of  course,  and 


WHAT  WILL   BECOME   OF  ANNIE?    69 

made  her  proud,  but  it  could  not  have  made  her 
prouder  of  him  than  she  had  been.  He  was  all- 
sufficient  for  her ;  no  change  could  make  any  differ- 
ence. .  .  .  Without  Jimmy,  what  could  she  have 
done?  He  had  never  been  gone  so  long  before; 
here  it  was  Sunday  evening;  he  had  left  at  eleven 
o'clock  Saturday  morning ;  there  was  to  be  an  extra 
session  of  the  council  Saturday  night,  an  unusual 
thing,  and  she  had  not  been  surprised  when  she 
awoke  to  find  that  it  was  Sunday  morning-— and  that 
Jimmy  had  not  come. 

The  morning  wore  away,  and  she  had  made  all 
the  arrangements  for  the  dinner  she  would  have 
awaiting  him.  She  had  gone  about  lightly,  happily, 
all  the  day,  singing  to  herself,  the  gladness  of  the 
new  spring  in  her.  But,  one  by  one,  all  the  tasks 
she  could  think  of  were  performed,  even  to  drawing 
the  water  for  his  bath  and  laying  out  his  clean  linen. 
And  then,  when  there  was  nothing  else  to  do  but 
wait,  and  nothing  with  which  to  beguile  her  waiting, 
she  had  taken  her  post  at  the  window  to  watch  for 
his  cab. 

The  day  waned,  the  Sunday  drew  wearily  toward 
its  close,  as  if  it  sighed  for  Monday,  and  the  resump- 


70  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

lion  of  active  life.  The  street  grew  stiller  and 
stiller.  She  heard  the  voice  of  a  newsboy,  far  out 
of  his  usual  haunts,  crying  an  extra.  She  could 
not  distinguish  the  words  in  which  he  bawled  his 
tidings,  and  she  thought  nothing  of  it.  One  of 
Jimmy's  few  rules  was  that  she  was  not  to  read  the 
papers.  But,  when  the  heavy  voice  was  gone,  she 
found  that  it  had  had  a  strange,  depressing  effect 
upon  her;  she  longed  for  Jimmy  to  come;  the  day 
had  dragged  itself  by  so  slowly,  and  something  of 
its  somberness  had  stolen  into  her  soul.  She  sighed, 
and  leaned  her  chin  on  her  arm ;  her  back  was  grow- 
ing tired,  and  beginning  to  ache.  Then  suddenly 
she  heard  horses'  hoofs,  and  the  roll  of  a  carriage 
in  the  street.  She  rose  and  leaned  far  out  of  the 
window  to  welcome  him.  The  cab  drew  up;  it 
stopped ;  the  door  opened.  But  the  man  who  got  out 
was  not  Jimmy.  It  was  Father  Daugherty.  She 
knew  him  the  instant  she  saw  the  fuzzy  old  high 
hat  thrust  out  of  the  cab,  and  caught  the  greenish 
sheen  of  the  shabby  cassock  that  stood  away  from 
the  fringe  of  white  hair  on  his  neck  in  such  an  ill- 
fitting,  ill-becoming  fashion.  The  old  man  did  not 
look  up,  but  tottered  across  the  sidewalk. 


WHAT   WILL   BECOME   OF  ANNIE?     71 

Annie  gasped,  and  scarce  could  move.  In  a  mo- 
ment more  she  heard  the  old  steps  on  the  stairs,  the 
steps  that  for  forty  years  had  gone  on  so  many  er- 
rands for  others,  kind  and  merciful  errands  all  of 
them,  though  for  the  most  part  sad.  He  was  soon  be- 
side her,  and  she  looked  up  into  the  gentle  face  that 
was  so  full  of  the  woes  of  humanity.  He  had  driven 
at  once  from  the  hospital  in  the  cab  they  had  sent  to 
fetch  him.  Jimmy's  last  words  had  been : 

"What  will  become  of  Annie?" 

The  death  of  Alderman  Jimmy  Tiernan  at  any 
time  would  have  been  a  shock.  When  death  came 
to  him  by  a  pistol-ball  it  created  what  the  news- 
papers, in  the  columns  they  were  so  glad  to  fill  that 
Monday  morning,  defined  as  a  profound  sensation. 
This  sensation  was  most  profound  in  two  circles 
in  the  city,  outwardly  unconnected,  though  bound 
by  ties  which  it  was  the  constant  and  earnest  effort 
of  both  to  keep  secret  and  unknown. 

The  city  council  had  had  a  special  session  on  Sat- 
urday night,  and  had  passed  the  new  gas  franchise. 
Alderman  Tiernan  had  had  charge  of  the  fight.  Mal- 
achi  Nolan  was  away,  and  Baldwin  had  picked  out 
Tiernan  as  the  most  trustworthy  and  able  of  those  of 


72  THE   GOLD   BRICK 

the  gang  who  were  left  behind.  Jimmy  had  felt  the 
compliment,  and  gloried  in  it.  It  was  the  biggest 
thing  that  had  fallen  to  him  in  his  political  life,  and 
he  was  determined  that  he  would  make  all  there  was 
to  be  made  out  of  the  opportunity.  Not  in  any  base 
or  sordid  sense — that  is,  not  wholly  so;  that  would 
come,  of  course,  but  he  felt  beyond  this  a  joy  in  his 
work;  the  satisfaction  of  mere  success  would  be  his 
chief  reward,  the  glory  and  the  professional  pride  he 
would  feel.  He  relished  the  fight  against  the  news- 
papers, against  "public  opinion,"  whatever  that  was ; 
against  the  element  that  called  itself  the  "better" 
element. 

He  was  fully  determined  that  no  step  should 
be  misplaced;  he  counted  his  men  over  and  over 
again;  he  checked  them  off  mentally,  and  it  all 
turned  out  as  he  had  said.  Every  one  was  present, 
every  one  voted,  and  voted  "right,"  when  the  roll 
was  called;  the  new  gas  franchise  was  granted; 
Jimmy  had  delivered  the  goods. 

It  was  natural  that  such  a  glorious  victory  should 
be  celebrated,  and  the  gang,  when  it  assembled  in 
Jimmy's  place,  immediately  after  the  session  was 
over,  could  not  restrain  its  impatience.  The  boys 


WHAT   WILL  BECOME   OF  ANNIE?     73 

longed  to  have  the  fruits  of  the  day's  work;  with 
their  wages  they  could  celebrate  with  glad,  care-free 
hearts.  But  Jimmy  was  of  a  Gaelic  cunning.  He 
would  not  jeopardize  the  victory  at  that  stage  by 
any  indiscretion.  He  saw  at  a  glance  the  mood  the 
gang  was  in.  He  smiled,  as  he  always  smiled — and 
any  one,  to  see  his  smile,  must  have  loved  him — 
but  he  shook  his  head. 

"The  drink's  in  you1,  boys,"  he  said,  "and  you 
can't  trust  your  tongues.  You'll  have  to  wait. 
Monday  night  you'll  be  over.  Then  we'll  talk  busi- 
ness." 

Subconsciously,  they  still  were  sober ;  in  a  strange 
dual  mentality  they  saw  the  safety  there  was  in  his 
decision ;  and,  in  the  paralysis  of  will  his  magnetism 
worked  in  them,  they  loved  him  the  more  for  it. 
They  remembered  that  it  was  just  what  Malachi 
would  have  done.  And  so,  noisy  and  excited  as 
they  were,  they  applauded  his  sagacity.  Then  they 
gave  themselves  over  unreservedly  to  their  appetites. 
It  was  a  famous  night  in  the  annals  of  the  gang. 
Jimmy  himself  joined  in  the  revelry.  And  in  the 
calm,  silent  Sunday  morning,  with  the  new  sun- 
light of  spring  glaring  in  his  swollen,  aching  eyes, 


74  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

he  found  himself,  with  a  companion,  in  a  Clark 
Street  chop  house.  Just  as  they  were  going  to  order 
breakfast,  a  young  man  came  in,  with  a  black  look 
in  his  eyes.  No  one  saw  it  then,  though  they  all 
remembered  it  afterward.  Jimmy  greeted  him  as 
gaily  as  he  greeted  everybody,  but  the  young  man 
did  not  warm  to  Jimmy's  greeting.  There  were 
words,  the  quick  rush  of  anger  to  Jimmy's  face,  a 
blow,  and  the  pistol  shot.  At  first  the  newspapers 
were  glad  to  trace  some  sinister  connection  between 
the  franchise  fight  and  the  tragedy.  Afterward, 
they  said  it  was  only  some  private  grudge.  No  one 
dreamed  that  Jimmy  Tiernan  had  an  enemy  on 
earth. 

At  the  hospital,  Jimmy  opened  his  eyes,  and  on 
his  face,  grown  very  white,  there  was  a  smile  again, 
the  last  of  his  winning  smiles.  His  friends  were 
with  him,  and  they  wept,  unashamed.  Then  he  rolled 
his  head  on  his  pillow,  and  spoke  of  Annie.  The 
calm  Sister  of  Charity  pressed  her  rosary  into  his 
hand,  and  stooped  to  listen.  They  had  just  time  to 
send  for  Father  Daugherty. 

Down  in  the  ward,  the  sadness  that  had  come 
to  Leadam  Street  spread  blackly.  Many  a  man, 


WHAT   WILL  BECOME  OF  ANNIE?     75 

and  many  a  woman,  and  many  a  child,  cried.  The 
poor  had  lost  a  friend,  and  they  would  not  soon 
forget  him.  In  the  long  days  of  the  distant  winter 
they  would  think  of  him  over  and  over.  Every  one 
in  that  ward  was  poor,  though  the  reformers,  con- 
descending that  way  whenever  Jimmy  was  up  for 
reelection,  somehow  never  grasped  the  real  signifi- 
cance of  the  fact.  And  it  was  a  somber  Monday 
around  the  city  hall.  Jimmy  had  been  a  man  with 
a  genius  for  friendship.  The  gang  mourned  him  in 
a  sadness  that  had  added  to  it  the  remorse  of  a 
recent  sobriety,  but  their  grief,  genuine  as  it  was, 
had  in  it  an  evil  bitterness  their  hearts  would  not 
have  owned.  They  were  restive  and  troubled. 
Whenever  they  got  together  in  little  groups,  they 
read  consternation  in  one  another's  faces,  and  now 
and  then  they  cursed  the  caution  they  had  extolled 
on  Saturday  night.  Besides  these  varied  effects,  Jim- 
my's death,  while  it  could  not  create  a  crisis  in  the 
market,  nevertheless  gave  rise  to  nervous  feelings 
in  certain  segments  of  financial  circles.  It  was 
inevitable  that  financial  and  political  circles  should 
overlap  and  intersect  each  other  in  this  matter,  and 
there  were  conferences  which  seemed  to  reflect  a 


76  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

sense  of  personal  resentment  at  Jimmy  for  having 
been  murdered  so  inopportunely.  In  the  end,  the 
financiers  were  peremptory  with  Baldwin.  He  must 
fix  the  thing  some  way.  And  he  assured  them  that 
he  would  give  the  appointment  of  the  administrator 
his  immediate  attention.  Already,  he  said,  he  had 
a  man  in  view  who  would  be  reasonable  and  prac- 
tical. There  were  suggestions  of  strong-handed 
methods,  but  that  was  never  George  R.  Baldwin's 
way.  He  went  out  with  his  air  of  affability  unim- 
paired. Meanwhile,  political  and  financial  circles 
could  only  wait  and  hope. 

The  excitement  of  the  first  few  days  following 
the  tragedy  kept  Annie's  mind  occupied;  but,  when 
the  funeral  was  over,  and  she  returned  to  her  little 
flat,  when  the  neighborly  women  had  at  last  gone 
back  to  their  homes  and  their  interrupted  duties, 
and  the  world  to  its  work,  Annie  was  left  to  face 
life  alone.  She  could  not  adjust  herself  to  the 
change,  and  fear  and  despair  added  their  blackness 
to  her  grief.  Father  Daugherty  knew  how  great  a 
blow  Jimmy's  death  would  be  to  her,  and,  though 
he  gave  what  comfort  he  could,  he  left  her  grief  to 


WHAT   WILL   BECOME   OF   ANNIE?     77 

time.  He  did  not  belong  to  the  preaching  orders. 
But,  as  he  pondered  in  his  wise  old  head,  he 
shrewdly  guessed  that  the  careless  Jimmy  would 
hardly  have  made  provision  against  anything  so 
far  from  his  thoughts  as  death,  and  he  perceived 
that  if  Annie  were  to  be  protected  from  a  future 
with  which  she,  alone  and  unaided,  would  hardly 
have  the  capacity  to  deal,  some  one  must  act. 

Long  ago  might  Father  Daugherty  have  cele- 
brated his  silver  jubilee  as  pastor  of  St.  Patrick's, 
but  he  was  not  the  man  for  celebrations.  The  par- 
ish was  one  big  family  to  him,  and  he  knew  the 
joys  and  sorrows,  the  little  hopes  and  pathetic  am- 
bitions of  every  one  in  it.  The  sorrows  of  his  chil- 
dren he  bore  in  his  own  heart;  they  had  wrought 
their  complex  and  tragic  tale  in  his  face.  The  joys 
he  left  them  to  taste  alone ;  but  he  found  too  much 
sorrow  to  have  time  for  joy.  During  all  those 
years,  he  had  given  himself  unsparingly;  if  it  was 
all  he  had  to  give,  it  was  the  most  precious  thing 
he  could  have  given — a  daily  sacrifice  that  exhausted 
a  temperament  keenly  sensitive  and  sympathetic.  So 
he  had  grown  old  and  white  before  his  time.  Many 
a  man  had  he  kept  straight  when  times  were  hard 


78  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

and  the  right  to  work  denied  him;  many  a  widow 
had  he  saved  from  the  wiles  of  the  claim-agent. 
The  corporations  and  the  lawyers  hated  him. 

And  so,  on  Monday  morning,  the  clerks  of  the 
probate  court  had  scarcely  had  time  to  yawn  reluc- 
tantly before  beginning  a  new  week's  work,  when 
Father  Daugherty  appeared  to  file  Annie's  waiver 
of  her  own  right  to  be  appointed  administratrix  of 
the  estate  of  James  Tiernan,  deceased,  with  an  appli- 
cation for  the  appointment,  instead,  of  Francis 
Daugherty  as  administrator. 

"He  must  keep  a  set  of  blanks,"  whispered  one 
clerk  to  another. 

As  Father  Daugherty  went  about  his  inventory, 
he  saw  that  the  result  would  be  what  he  had  ex- 
pected. Jimmy  had  left  no  estate,  no  insurance, 
nothing  but  the  saloon.  And  that,  with  Jimmy  dead, 
was  nothing,  for  its  value  lay  all  in  Jimmy's  person- 
ality and  the  importance  of  his  position  in  politics. 
The  fixtures  would  hardly  pay  for  the  burying  of 
him.  When  the  debts  the  law  prefers  had  been  paid, 
Annie  would  have  scarce  a  penny.  The  world 
might  preserve  a  respectful  and  sympathetic  attitude 
during  the  few  exciting  days  when  it  was  paying 


WHAT   WILL  BECOME   OF  ANNIE?     79 

its  last  conventional  tributes  to  the  dead  man,  but 
it  kept  itemized  accounts  meanwhile,  and  it  could 
not  long  pretend  to  have  forgotten  material  things. 
It  would  present  its  bills,  and  they  must  be  paid. 
Annie  would  have  hardly  a  cent  to  meet  them  with. 
And  Father  Daugherty  knew,  even  if  Annie  did 
not  know,  what  the  world  would  do  then. 

Yet  he  smiled,  though  he  shook  his  head,  as  he 
thought  of  the  free-handed,  indiscriminating  gen- 
erosity that  had  been  akin  to  the  improvidence  of 
Jimmy's  nature.  And  now  he  had  but  one  more 
duty  to  perform;  the  safe  in  Jimmy's  saloon  had 
not  been  opened.  No  one,  not  even  the  bartender, 
knew  the  combination,  and  Father  Daugherty  had  a 
locksmith  to  drill  the  lock.  The  gang  had  attended 
Jimmy's  funeral  in  black  neckties,  and  had  mourned 
him  sincerely,  but,  now  that  he  was  buried,  their 
attitude  became  the  common  worldly  attitude,  with 
perhaps  a  little  more  than  the  usual  aggressiveness 
in  it.  They  were  in  a  quandary  as  to  the  bundle  in 
the  new  gas  franchise,  and  many  conferences 
with  Baldwin  had  nerved  them  to  desperate 
expedients.  So  it  was  on  Baldwin's  advice  that 
they  determined  to  be  represented  at  the  opening 


So  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

of  the  safe.  Two  of  the  number  were  detailed  to 
this  duty,  McQuirk  of  the  Ninth,  and  Bretzenger  of 
the  Twenty- fourth.  When  they  made  their  demand 
on  Father  Daugherty,  explaining  that  they  came  in 
their  capacity  as  Jimmy's  nearest  friends,  he 
assented  with  a  readiness  that  relieved  them  both, 
and  delighted  Bretzenger,  though  McQuirk,  who 
knew  Father  Daugherty  better  than  his  colleague 
did,  was  fearful  and  suspicious.  Father  Daugherty 
said  that  he  had  thought  of  having  witnesses,  and 
they  would  serve  as  well  as  any.  It  was  very  kind 
of  them. 

The  priest  and  the  two  aldermen  waited  in  the 
saloon  for  two  hours  while  the  locksmith  drilled 
away  silently.  The  street  door  was  closed;  the 
crape  still  hung  from  the  handle  that  had  never  gone 
unlatched  so  long  at  a  time  before,  the  curtains  were 
drawn,  and  outside  the  crowds  for  ever  shuffled  by 
on  the  sidewalk,  all  oblivious  to  the  little  drama  of 
hopes  and  fears  that  was  unfolding  its  cross-pur- 
poses within.  The  saloon  was  dark,  and  an  electric 
bulb  glowed  to  shed  light  for  the  locksmith.  The 
two  aldermen  puffed  their  cigars  in  silence,  save  for 
an  occasional  whisper,  one  with  another.  Father 


WHAT   WILL  BECOME  OF  ANNIE?    81 

Daugherty's  gaunt  form  leaned  against  the  dusty 
bar,  strangely  out  of  keeping  with  such  a  scene, 
though  the  saloons  in  his  parish  knew  him,  especially 
on  Saturday  nights,  when  he  conducted  little  raids 
of  his  own,  and  turned  his  prisoners  over  to  their 
wives.  Now  his  weary  visage  was  relaxed  in  patient 
waiting.  At  last  the  locksmith  dropped  his  tools, 
and  said : 

"There!" 

The  thick  steel  doors  swung  out  on  their  noise- 
less hinges.  The  two  aldermen  sprang  to  the  side  of 
the  safe.  The  priest  drew  near  slowly,  but  his  little 
eyes  were  turned  on  the  aldermen,  and  they  fell  back 
a  pace.  Then  the  priest's  long  figure  sank  to  a  kneel- 
ing posture,  and  he  peered  into  the  safe.  There  was 
nothing  in  view.  It  was  strangely  empty,  for  a  safe 
of  its  monstrous  size  and  mystery,  and  the  tenacity 
of  its  combination.  He  thrust  in  his  hand  and  fum- 
bled through  all  its  hollow  interior,  and  then  he  drew 
forth — a  soiled  linen  collar!  It  was  ludicrous,  and 
for  once  he  laughed,  a  little  laugh.  There  was  not  a 
ledger,  not  a  book. 

"He  kept  no  accounts,  your  riverence,"  said  Mc- 
Quirk. 


82  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"It  was  just  like  him,"  said  Father  Daugherty. 
But  he  kept  on  with  his  search.  And,  when  he 
opened  the  little  drawer  of  maplewood,  he  found  a 
parcel,  done  snugly  up  in  thick  brown  paper.  He 
tore  it  open,  and  there  swelled  into  his  sight  pack- 
ages of  bank-notes  almost  bursting  in  their  yellow 
paper  straps.  The  bills  were  new,  and  as  freshly 
green  as  the  spring  itself ;  more  tempting  thus,  some 
way,  to  the  reluctant  conscience.  The  two  aldermen 
bent  over  the  black,  stooping  figure  of  the  priest, 
their  eyes  fixed  on  the  money.  There  it  was  at  last, 
the  bundle  itself,  the  price  of,  or  a  part  of  the  price 
of  the  new  gas  franchise.  The  priest  straightened 
painfully,  and  got  to  his  feet.  He  held  the  bundle  in 
his  thin  fingers,  and  glanced  at  his  witnesses,  with  a 
keen  and  curious  eye.  They  met  his  gaze,  expectant, 
eager,  drawing  dry,  hot  breaths.  Involuntarily,  they 
extended  their  hands.  Father  Daugherty  looked  at 
them,  and  a  little  twinkle  of  amusement  showed  in 
the  eyes  that  were  wontedly  so  mild  and  sad. 

"Would  you?"  he  said. 

The  two  aldermen  hastily  raised  their  hands,  and 
together,  in  strange  unison,  wiped  their  brows.  The 
room  had  suddenly  grown  hot  for  them,  and  their 


WHAT  WILL  BECOME  OF  ANNIE?    83 

brows  were  wet,  though  Father  Daugherty  was  cool 
and  composed,  as  he  ever  was.  Yet  they  remem- 
bered ;  they  could  not  so  easily  give  up ;  it  was  theirs 
by  every  right.  They  could  have  cursed  Jimmy  just 
then  for  his  excessive  caution.  It  was  McQuirk's 
quick  mind  that  thought  first. 

"Maybe  there's  writing,"  he  said. 

Father  Daugherty  looked  long  and  thoroughly, 
running  his  thin  hand  deep  into  pigeon-holes  and 
back  into  the  partitions,  until  the  sleeves  of  his 
shabby  coat  were  pushed  far  up  his  lean  wrist. 

"Not  a  scrap,"  he  said. 

"Then,  maybe — "  But  McQuirk  drew  Bretzenger 
away,  and  they  went  into  the  darkness  that  lay  thick 
as  dust  in  the  back  of  the  long  room.  Meanwhile, 
Father  Daugherty  searched  the  safe  through  and 
through.  He  found  nothing  more.  The  strong-box 
had  had  but  one  purpose,  and  it  had  served  it  well. 
Then  slowly,  painfully,  with  the  clumsy,  unaccus- 
tomed fingers  that  had  had  small  chance  to  count 
money,  he  turned  the  packages  over,  counting  them 
carefully,  wetting  his  trembling  fingers  now  and 
then.  The  man  who  had  drilled  the  safe  stood  look- 
ing on,  with  eyes  that  widened  more  and  more. 


84  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"How  much  is  there,  Father?"  he  said,  at  length. 
He  extended  a  grimy  forefinger  hesitatingly,  as  if  to 
touch  the  package  the  priest  balanced  on  his  palm. 
But  he  did  not  touch  it,  any  more  than  if  it  had  been 
something  sacred  in  that  clean,  sacerdotal  hand. 

"Fifty  thousand,"  the  priest  answered.  His 
voice  was  a  trifle  husky. 

"Fifty  thousand!"  the  man  exclaimed.  And 
then  he  added,  in  awe :  "Dollars !  Doesn't  look  like 
that  much,  does  it  ?" 

"No,"  Father  Daugherty  answered.  He  had  been 
a  little  surprised  himself.  There  was  something  dis- 
appointing in  the  size  of  the  package.  He  had  never 
seen  so  much  money  before,  and  its  tremendous 
power,  its  tremendous  power  for  evil,  as  he  sud- 
denly thought,  was  concentrated  in  a  compass  so 
small  that  the  mind  could  but  slowly  wheel  about  to 
the  new  conception.  The  locksmith  spoke. 

"Might  I — might  I — hold  it  a  second — in  my  own 
hand  ?"  he  said. 

The  priest  gave  the  bundle  into  the  hand  hardened 
by  so  much  honest  toil.  The  man  held  it,  heaving  it 
up  and  down  incredulously,  testing  its  weight.  Then 
he  gave  it  back. 


WHAT  WILL  BECOME  OF  ANNIE?    85 

"Thanks,"  he  said,  and  sighed. 

The  two  aldermen  had  returned  from  their  little 
conference. 

"Your  riverence,"  began  McQuirk  hesitatingly, 
"might  we  have  a  word  with  you — in  private?"  He 
looked  suspiciously  at  the  workman.  The  priest  went 
with  them  a  little  way  apart. 

"We  know  about  that,"  McQuirk  pointed  to  the 
bundle. 

"You  do,  do  you?"  said  the  priest  sharply. 

"Yes,  Father,"  Bretzinger  said.  "It's — it's — well, 
it  belongs  to  the  company,  sir." 

"What  company  ?" 

"Well,  you  know,  the  new  ga — ah,  that  is,  Mr. 
Baldwin,  the  lawyer.  You  know  him?" 

"George  R.  ?"  asked  Father  Daugherty. 

"Yes,  your  riverence,"  said  both  men  hopefully. 
"It  should  go  back  to  him." 

The  priest  looked  at  them,  and  they  caught  again 
that  amused  expression  in  his  face.  It  put  them  ill  at 
ease,  and  it  roused  resentment  in  Bretzenger,  who 
felt  that  this  calm  priest  could  read  him  too  well. 

"None  of  it  belongs  to  you,  then,  I  suppose?"  ob- 
served Father  Daugherty. 


86  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Ah,  well — of  course,"  McQuirk  urged,  and  his 
tone  showed  that  he  was  trying,  in  his  crude  way, 
to  impress  the  priest  with  an  honest  disinterested- 
ness. "Of  course,  Jimmy  was  entitled  to  his  piece." 

"Sure!"  Bretzenger  said,  swelling  with  the  little 
virtue  he  had  found  to  help  him. 

"But  you  say  it  ought  to  go  back  to  Baldwin,  eh  ?" 

"That's  what  we  think,  sir,"  they  chimed. 

"Well,  he  can  come  and  identify  it,"  said  Father 
Daugherty.  He  slowly  wrapped  the  package  up,  and, 
unbuttoning  his  long,  rusty  coat  a  little  way  down 
from  the  throat,  stuffed  the  money  into  an  inner 
pocket.  The  deed  seemed  to  madden  Bretzenger, 
and  he  moved  a  step  forward.  The  two  others  saw 
his  motion.  The  priest  did  not  move,  but  he  turned 
a  look  on  them,  and  raised  his  hand,  and  McQuirk 
quailed,  a  superstitious  fear  in  his  eyes.  He  stiffened 
his  arm  before  Bretzenger,  and  stayed  him.  And 
then  the  priest  stepped  quietly  to  the  safe,  and  pushed 
its  door  to  with  an  arm  that  seemed  too  weak  and 
frail  to  stir  the  heavy  steel. 

"It  looks  to  me,  Michael,"  he  was  saying  gently, 
as  if  addressing  McQuirk  alone,  "like  personal 
property,  and,  as  I'm  the  administrator,  I  suppose 


WHAT   WILL  BECOME  OF  ANNIE?    87 

I'll  have  to  take  charge  of  it.  If  any  beside  our  dead 
friend  own  it,  let  them  come  forward  and  prove  their 
claim,  and  identify  their  property  in  open  court." 

Father  Daugherty  reported  the  whole  affair  to  the 
probate  court,  and  the  judge  when  the  time  for  filing 
claims  had  elapsed,  and  he  had  waited  for  the  par- 
ticular claim  he  knew  would  not  be  presented,  or- 
dered a  distribution  of  the  property.  Then  Father 
Daugherty  went  to  the  flat  to  see  Annie,  bearing  the 
bundle,  the  original  bundle,  the  bundle  that  had 
bought  the  new  gas  franchise.  Something  of  the 
dramatic  quality  in  the  situation  had  got  into  the  old 
priest's  heart.  He  knew  that  Annie  would  appre- 
ciate it  all  so  much  better  if  she  could  see  the 
fortune,  and  feel  it,  and  he  would  let  her  do  so  for 
an  instant  before  he  put  it  away  in  the  safety  deposit 
vaults  to  await  opportunity  for  its  investment. 

She  looked  at  it  long  and  long,  lying  there  in  the 
lap  of  her  black  gown.  She  could  not  grasp  the 
amount,  though  the  old  priest,  leaning  forward,  with 
the  enthusiasm  of  a  boy  shining  once  more,  after  so 
many  years,  in  his  hollow  eyes,  said  over  and  over : 

"Look  at  it,  my  child !  Feel  it !  It's  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars !  And  it's  all  yours !" 


88  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

She  patted  it,  tenderly  and  affectionately,  with  a 
soft  and  reminiscent  caress,  so  that  the  priest  knew 
that  it  was  not  for  anything  that  package  of  money 
might  hold  for  her  in  a  material  way,  then  or  after- 
ward, but  rather  for  what  it  gave  back  for  a  mo- 
ment to  her  desolated  heart.  And  the  priest  was 
glad  of  that,  and  thereafter  silent.  He  had  had 
doubts.  He  would  feel  better  when  the  money  had 
passed  out  of  his  hands,  and  he  sometimes  questioned 
whether  it  would  ever  do  good  in  any  one's  hands. 
But  he  had  a  sense  of  humor,  too,  a  grim  sense  in 
this  instance,  when  he  thought  of  certain  political 
and  financial  circles,  even  if  he  did  dust  his  thin 
hands  carefully  with  his  spotless  handkerchief  when 
he  laid  the  money  down. 

Annie's  eyes  had  filled  with  the  ready  tears  that 
welled  to  their  sweeping,  black  lashes,  and  trembled 
there  as  she  raised  her  eyes  to  him. 

"Ah,  Father,"  she  said,  "he  was  so,  so  good  to  me, 
always — and  so  kind!  And  see  how  thoughtful  he 
was — to  leave  me  all  this!  Oh,  Jimmy,  my  poor 
Jimmy!" 

And  she  rocked  forward,  like  an  old  woman,  and 
wept. 


THE  VINDICATION  OF 
HENDERSON  OF  GREENE 

BALDWIN,  the  lobbyist,  leaning  forward  with 
his  elbows  on  his  knees,  and  swaying  with  the 
train  as  it  swung  out  on  to  the  rocky  ledge  that  paves 
the  Valley  of  the  Desplaines,  contemplatively  cut  the 
end  from  a  fresh  cigar  and  said : 

"But  I'm  not  so  sure,  after  all.  My  experience 
with  the  Bailey  bill  shook  my  faith  in  that  proposi- 
tion." 

The  two  other  men  in  the  salon  looked  up  with 
startled  eyes. 

Baldwin  had  been  driven  over  from  his  Michigan 
Avenue  home  and  caught  the  Alton  Limited  when  it 
made  the  station  stop  at  Twenty-third  Street,  where 
he  boarded  the  last  of  its  curtained  Pullmans.  This 
coach  was  the  political  institution  known  to  Illinois 
statesmanship  as  the  Springfield  sleeper,  and  Bald- 

89 


90  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

win  and  his  two  companions,  Jennings,  the  secre- 
tary of  state,  and  Denny  Healy,  a  canal  commis- 
sioner, had  the  capsulated  coziness  of  its  smoking 
compartment  all  to  themselves.  Down  by  Dwight 
they  had  fallen  into  a  desultory  discussion  of  the 
old  question  as  to  whether  or  not  every  man  has  his 
price.  The  question  could  hardly  interest  these  men 
long,  for,  after  many  years'  constant  contemplation, 
under  the  gray  dome  of  the  state  house,  of  the  weak- 
nesses of  men,  they  had  come  to  an  acceptance  of 
the  doctrine  now  grown  frank  enough  to  have  no 
lingering  taint  of  cynicism.  Jennings,  indeed,  had 
just  dismissed  the  subject  by  declaring: 

"All  men  aire  fer  sale,  an'  most  of  'em  damn 
cheap." 

And  so  the  subject  might  have  lapsed  had  it  not 
been  for  Baldwin's  heterodoxy.  That  George  R. 
Baldwin  of  all  men  should  doubt  the  first  maxim 
of  their  profession  was  beyond  comprehension. 
Though  he  played  his  part  in  life  with  a  suite  of  law 
offices  in  a  skyscraper  as  a  background,  his  serious 
business  was  lobbying  bills  through  the  legislature. 
His  friends,  who  were  many,  boasted  that  he  always 
stood  by  them,  right  or  wrong.  Which  he  did,  in- 


HENDERSON    OF    GREENE  91 

deed,  and  as  they  were  generally  wrong,  the  value 
of  such  friendship,  or  his  opinions  on  practical  poli- 
tics, could  hardly  be  overestimated.  The  day  had 
been  a  hot  one  in  Chicago,  but  now  a  cold  draft 
of  smoky  air  was  sucking  in  through  the  narrow 
window-screen,  on  which  the  cinders  hailed  as  the 
Limited  plunged  southward. 

Smoke  and  dirt  had  long  since  begrimed  the  dark 
and  sweaty  face  of  Jennings,  who,  with  waistcoat 
opened  in  the  comfort  dear  to  the  Egyptian,  was 
sprawling  his  shanks  on  the  cushion  opposite  him, 
while  Healy,  doomed  by  corpulence  to  an  attitude 
more  erect,  sitting  with  his  chubby  knees  far  apart, 
as  the  fat  will,  his  paunch  resting  on  the  edge  of  the 
seat  he  filled,  now  and  then  brushed  a  fat  palm  over 
his  red  scalp  and  sighed,  as  he  puffed  his  domestic 
cigar.  But  Baldwin  sat  and  smiled,  showing  his 
excellent  teeth  beneath  his  reddish  mustache,  and 
visibly  expanded.  They  could  hear,  as  an  undertone 
to  their  talking,  the  dull  roll  of  the  Pullman's  paper 
wheels,  and  now  and  then  they  were  interrupted  by 
the  whistle's  long  and  lonesome  note  at  a  country 
road-crossing.  Out  through  the  double  windows, 
against  which  Healy  sometimes  pressed  his  fore- 


92  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

head  because  the  glass  cooled  it,  .the  dark  fields 
wheeled  past  in  an  endless  belt  of  blackness,  save 
where  an  occasional  bunch  of  sparks  from  the  en- 
gine burrowed  under  the  right-of-way  fence,  and 
then,  in  the  momentary  glow  of  light,  they  could 
catch  sight  of  a  tossing  plume  of  corn,  which  told 
them  they  were  out  on  the  prairies  of  central  Illinois. 

When  the  train  paused  for  the  Big  Four  crossing 
at  Gardner,  they  heard  in  the  sudden  flood  of  silence 
the  snoring  of  a  sensible  fare-paying  passenger  who 
had  gone  to  bed.  The  strident  noise  of  the  crickets 
and  the  frogs  outside  was  noted  only  as  an  effect  of 
the  silence.  The  three  men  had  no  thought  of  retir- 
ing until  they  reached  Pontiac  at  two  o'clock,  for  the 
lives  they  led  were  such  that  they  could  not  sleep 
until  that  hour,  and  then  not  very  well. 

Baldwin  had  lighted  his  imported  cigar,  the  su- 
perior aroma  of  which,  perceptible  even  in  an  at- 
mosphere choked  with  coal  gases  and  the  fumes  of 
the  domestic  cigars  Jennings  and  Healy  were  smok- 
ing, indicated  faintly  the  height  of  cultivation  to 
which  he  had  brought  his  appetites,  when  Jennings, 
flecking  his  ashes  on  the  floor  of  the  salon  just  as  he 
would  have  done  on  his  own  parlor  carpet,  said : 


HENDERSON    OF   GREENE  93 

"Well,  go  on  with  the  story." 

Baldwin  settled  his  chin  over  the  blue  cravat  with 
the  white  polka  dots  that  was  knotted  over  the  im- 
maculate collar — a  collar,  incredulous  men  from 
southern  Illinois  were  sometimes  told,  that  was  act- 
ually made  on  the  shirt — drew  his  creased  trousers 
a  little  farther  above  the  tops  of  his  patent  leather 
boots,  and  began : 

"One  session  there  was  an  old  man  named  Hen- 
derson in  the  house,  who  had  come  up  from  Greene 
County;  Henderson  of  Greene,  everybody  called 
him,  to  distinguish  him  from  Tom  Henderson,  of 
Effingham.  He  was  a  queer  figure,  was  Henderson 
of  Greene,  tall  and  gaunt,  with  a  stoop  in  his  shoul- 
ders. He  always  wore  a  hickory  shirt,  opened  at  a 
red  and  wrinkled  throat,  and  his  hair  was  just  a 
stubble  bleached  by  harvest  suns.  The  old  man  was 
a  riddle  to  everybody  in  Springfield  that  winter.  He 
was  always  in  his  seat,  even  on  Monday  evenings, 
when  no  one  else  was  there.  He  voted  always  with  his 
party,  and  he  voted  consistently  as  well,  like  a  good 
country  member,  against  all  the  Chicago  legislation. 
But  he  was  a  silent  man,  who  stood  apart  from  his 
fellows,  looking  with  eyes  that  peered  from  under 


94  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

his  shaggy,  sunburned  brows  with  an  expression  no 
one  could  fathom.  He  never  made  a  speech,  he  never 
introduced  a  bill,  he  never  offered  a  resolution,  he 
never  even  presented  a  petition,  and  when  the 
speaker  made  his  committee  assignments,  he  placed 
the  old  man  on  the  committees  on  History,  Geology 
and  Science,  and  on  Civil  Service  Reform,  and  he 
did  not  even  look  disappointed." 

The  two  politicians  chuckled. 

"As  for  me,"  continued  Baldwin,  "I  never  spoke 
to  him,  and  never  knew  any  one  who  did.  The 
speaker  himself  only  addressed  him — and  then  as 
the  gentleman  from  Greene — when  they  were  veri- 
fying roll-calls.  No  one  ever  knew  where  he 
boarded.  The  herd  book  gave  him  a  paragraph,  say- 
ing that  he  had  been  born  in  Indiana  along  in  '37, 
and  moved  to  this  state  sometime  in  the  fifties.  Left 
an  orphan  early,  with  no  education,  he  had  been  a 
day  laborer  all  his  life,  working  at  anything  he  could 
get,  mostly  on  farms.  He  never  had  held  office  be- 
fore, and  none  knew  how  he  broke  into  the  legisla- 
ture— the  tidal  wave,  I  suppose.  Every  one  knew  he 
never  would  come  back  again. 

"Well,  we  got  down  to  the  last  night  of  the  ses- 


HENDERSON    OF    GREENE  95 

sion.  The  hands  of  the  clock  had  been  turned  back 
in  that  vain  old  attempt  to  stay  the  remorseless 
hours,  but  its  pale  and  impassive  face  was  impotent 
as  a  gravestone  to  stay  dissolution  and  oblivion.  I 
know  men  who  would  have  spent  a  fortune  to  give 
that  legislature  one  day  more  of  life,  but  it  was 
sweeping  on  to  its  midnight  death.  Somehow,  when- 
ever I  think  of  the  legislature,  I  think  of  that  legis- 
lature, and  whenever  my  mind  conceives  the  state 
house  it  isn't  pictured  to  me  as  standing  there  on 
the  hill,  stately  in  the  sunshine,  but  as  it  appeared 
that  night  as  I  walked  over  from  the  Leland,  with 
the  clouds  flying  low  over  its  dome.  The  lower 
floors  were  dark  and  still  as  sepulchres,  and  the  mes- 
senger boys  who  came  over  from  the  Western 
Union,  now  and  then,  reminded  me  of  ghosts  as  they 
went  by,  their  heels  dragging  on  the  marble  floors 
of  the  corridor.  A  light  was  burning  in  the  gov- 
ernor's office,  though  the  old  man  himself,  I  knew, 
was  over  at  the  mansion,  pacing  the  floor  of  the  li- 
brary and  cursing  with  classic  curses.  We  were  go- 
ing to  try  that  night  to  pass  the  Bailey  bill  over  his 
veto. 

"But  the  third  floor  blazed  with  electric  lights,  and 


96  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

the  big  dome  was  full  of  noisy  echoes.  The  senate 
kept  its  coat  on — you  know  how  they  mimic  de- 
corum over  there — but  the  house  was  in  its  shirt- 
sleeves, huddled  like  a  pack  of  wolves  around  the 
speaker's  dais,  with  faces  ripe  with  whisky,  shaking 
its  fists  under  the  umbrella  of  cigar  smoke.  Every 
fellow  was  trying  to  get  his  bill  passed  in  the  last 
hour  of  the  session — you  know  what  it  is,  Hank  ?" 

"Oah,  yes,"  replied  Jennings,  "but  'tain't  nothin' 
to  what 't  used  to  be  under  the  olj  constitution.  We'd 
stack  a  pile  o'  them  'ere  private  acts  up  on  the  clerk's 
desk,  an'  pass  'em  all  t'  oncet  'ith  a  whoop.  Them 
'as  the  days — but  that  'as  'fore  your  time." 

"Those  must  have  been  good  old  days,"  assented 
the  lobbyist,  "for  the  gang." 

"I  reckon!  A  feller  could  'a'  done  business  in 
them  days!  Ol'  John  M.'d  better  left  the  ol'  consti- 
tution alone — it  'as  good  enough.  But  there  'as  a 
passion  fer  change  right  after  the  war." 

The  lobbyist  politely  nodded  concurrence  in  this 
view  and  continued : 

"Some  of  the  members  clambered  on  to  their 
desks,  filling  the  air  with  oaths,  ink  bottles,  and  hurt- 
ling books  with  rattling  leaves.  Sometimes  an  iron 


HENDERSON   OF   GREENE  97 

weight  sheathed  in  paper  whizzed  by  on  a  vindictive 
mission,  and  one  man  made  an  Egyptian  nigger- 
killer  with  rubber  bands.  Some  even  hurled  their 
copies  of  the  revised  statutes — it  was  the  first  use 
they  had  ever  found  for  them.  Once  in  a  while  some 
one  would  toss  a  batch  of  printed  bills  to  the  ceiling, 
where  they  set  the  glass  prisms  of  the  chandeliers 
jingling,  and  then  fell  like  autumn  leaves,  a  shower 
of  dead  pledges  and  withered  hopes.  And  out  of  all 
the  hubbub  rose  a  steady  roar — " 

"Like  at  a  lynchin'  bee,"  assisted  Jennings. 

"Exactly,"  assented  Baldwin,  who  had  never  seen 
a  lynching.  "There  were  drunken  howls  and  vacu- 
ous laughs,  and  yet  we  could  hear  through  it  all  the 
hoarse  voice  of  the  clerk,  his  throat  so  heated  that 
you  could  see  the  vapor  of  his  breath,  as  you  can  an 
orator's,  or  a  wood-chopper's  in  winter,  rapidly  in- 
toning senate  bills  on  third  reading.  The  pages  were 
growing  heedless  and  impertinent.  The  newspaper 
correspondents,  their  despatches  on  the  wires,  puffed 
their  cigarettes  in  professional  unconcern,  and 
awaited  happenings  worthy  of  late  bulletins.  The 
older  members,  who  had  been  through  the  mill  many 
times  before,  lounged  low  in  their  seats.  One  could 


98  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

see,  above  their  desks,  only  their  heads  and  heels. 
The  speaker,  old  'Zeke  himself,  was  in  the  chair, 
suave  as  ever,  but  growing  caustic.  He  had  splin- 
tered his  sounding-board  early  in  the  evening,  and 
had  taken  to  tapping  perfunctorily  his  walnut  desk 
with  his  little  inadequate  gavel.  And  yet  he  and  the 
older  members  and  the  newspaper  men  would  cast 
occasionally  an  anxious  glance  at  the  clock,  and  an 
expectant  one  at  the  big  doors. 

"As  I  sat  there  on  the  old,  red  lounge  under  the 
speaker's  flag-draped  canopy,  I  noticed  Henderson 
of  Greene,  standing  away  back  under  the  galleries 
on  the  Democratic  side,  eying  the  proceedings  with 
the  same  mysterious  stare  that  had  never  left  him 
since  he  had  been  sworn  in.  As  I  have  said,  I  had 
never  spoken  to  the  fellow,  but  I  had  always  felt  a 
pity  for  him — he  impressed  me  as  a  man  who  had 
been  stunned  by  repeated  raps  of  bad  luck.  Along 
toward  the  end  of  the  session  he  had  brought  his 
wife  up  from  Greene  County  to  the  capital.  She 
had  that  tired  look  that  country  women  have.  Her 
face  was  seamed,  her  cheeks  hollow;  her  back  was 
bent  in  a  bow,  and  she  walked  hurriedly,  anxiously 
along  in  her  flapping  skirts  beside  her  tall  and  som- 


HENDERSON    OF    GREENE  99 

her  husband.  She  had  never  been  away  from  home 
before,  and  the  boys  had  many  a  laugh  over  her 
wonder  at  the  trolley-cars  purring  along  under  the 
maple  trees,  and  her  fear  of  the  elevators  in  the 
state  house — though,  for  my  part,  I  could  see  noth- 
ing ludicrous  in  it  all.  She  stayed  three  or  four  days 
and  they  went  everywhere,  out  to  Oak  Ridge  to 
see  Lincoln's  tomb,  over  to  Eighth  Street  to  visit 
his  old  homestead,  up  to  the  Geological  Museum 
where  the  moth-eaten  stuffed  animals  are,  and  out 
to  Camp  Lincoln.  They  took  many  trolley  rides,  and 
even  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  state  house  dome, 
whence,  they  say,  you  can  see  Rochester  and  the 
prairies  for  thirty  miles  around.  He  brought  her 
over  to  the  house  one  or  two  mornings,  but  not  on  to 
the  floor  as  other  members  did  their  over-dressed 
wives;  he  sent  her  up  to  the  gallery,  where  she  sat 
peering  down  over  the  railing  at  the  gang — and  her 
husband,  who  took  no  part  in  all  that  was  going  on. 
"The  old  woman's  interest  in  all  these  new  things 
that  had  come  into  her  starved  life,  her  ill-concealed 
pride  in  her  husband's  membership  in  such  a  dis- 
tinguished body  of  law-givers,  were  touching  to  me, 
and  as  I  looked  at  him  that  last  night  of  the  session, 


ioo  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

and  thought  of  her,  the  wish  to  do  something  to 
lighten  their  lives  came  into  my  heart,  but  just  then, 
suddenly,  old  'Zeke  started  from  his  chair,  grasped 
his  gavel  firmly,  and  leaned  expectantly  over  his 
desk.  At  the  same  instant  the  older  members 
dragged  their  feet  down  from  their  desks  and  sat 
bolt  upright.  The  newspaper  men  flung  away  their 
cigarettes  and  adjusted  their  eye-glasses.  The  assist- 
ant clerk,  who  had  been  reading,  looked  up  from  the 
bill  then  under  what  I  suppose  they  would  have 
called  consideration,  and  hurriedly  gave  his  place  at 
the  reading  desk  to  the  clerk  of  the  house.  I  knew 
what  was  coming.  I  knew  that  the  Bailey  bill  was 
on  its  way  over  from  the  senate.  And  I  heard  Bill 
Hill  call: 

"  'Mistah  Speakah.' 

"At  the  sound  of  that  voice  the  uproar  in  the 
chamber  ceased.  It  became  so  still  that  the  silence 
tingled  like  a  numbness  through  the  body;  stiller 
than  it  had  been  any  time  since  nine  o'clock  that 
morning,  when  they  had  paused  for  the  chaplain  to 
say  his  prayer.  The  gang  turned  around  and  stood 
motionless,  panting,  in  its  shirt-sleeves,  as  though  a 
flashlight  photograph  were  to  be  taken.  Half-way 


HENDERSON    OF    GREENE          101 

down  the  aisle  stood  Hill.  You  know  how  he  would 
look  at  such  a  time,  in  his  long  black  coat,  his  wide 
white  shirt  bosom  with  the  big  diamond,  his  rolling 
collar  and  black  string  tie,  and  his  long  black  hair 
falling  to  his  shoulders.  You  know  how  he  would 
love  such  a  moment — and  it  was  his  last  chance  that 
session.  He  stood  there  quietly  a  whole  minute,  and 
then  putting  a  foot  forward,  said  in  his  great  bass 
voice : 

"  'Mistah  Speakah.' 

"Old  'Zeke  rose  and  said : 

"  'Mister  Doorkeeper.' 

"  'A  message  from  the  senate,  by  its  secretary.' 

"  'A  message  from  the  senate  by  its  secretary,' 
repeated  'Zeke,  and  then  Bill  had  to  give  way  to 
Sam  Pollard,  who  stepped  forth  and  said: 

"  'Mr.  Speaker,  I  am  directed  to  inform  the  house 
that  the  senate  has  passed  senate  bill  No.  106' — I 
never  shall  forget  the  number  of  that  bill,  after  all 
the  sleepless  nights  it  caused  me,  and  the  anxious 
mornings  scanning  the  calendar  to  see  if  its  black 
figures  were  there — 'Senate  bill  No.  106.  A  bill 
for  an  act  to  amend  an  act  entitled :  An  Act  con- 
cerning the  exercise  of  the  right  of  eminent  domain, 


102  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

notwithstanding  the  objections  of  the  governor' — 
you  know  the  lingo. 

"Then,  as  the  speaker  said,  'The  clerk  will  read 
the  message,'  Hen  Harvey,  who  was  clerk  of  the 
house,  stretched  his  arm  over  the  narrow  desk  and 
took  the  file  from  the  page.  The  old  man  was  mad 
when  he  wrote  that  veto  message,  and  he  gave  both 
houses  the  devil.  I  never  knew  the  legislature  to  get 
such  an  unmerciful  lamming  in  my  life;  it  was  out- 
rageous, for  it  was  a  good  bill,  and — " 

"Ought  ter  pass,"  interjected  Jennings,  repeating 
the  trite  phrase  sententiously. 

"But  nobody  heard  it,  for  when  Hen  began  to 
read,  the  gang  took  a  deep  breath  and  began  to 
howl.  From  both  sides  of  the  chamber  broke  forth 
a  clamor  of  'Mr.  Speaker,  Mr.  Speaker,'  until  in  the 
din  even  these  words  were  lost,  and  there  was  just 
that  long,  heavy  roar.  The  boys  came  over  from  the 
senate,  for  they  had  done  their  duty  and  had  done 
it  nobly,  in  the  face  of  a  great  storm  of  criticism, 
combined  with  the  abuse  of  the  Chicago  papers,  and 
they  wanted  to  help  lift  in  the  house.  And  with 
them  came  the  crowd  of  reformers  from  the  Munici- 
pal League,  and  stood  about  with  George  Herrick, 


HENDERSON    OF    GREENE          103 

the  old  man's  private  secretary.  The  reformers,  as 
George  pointed  out  members  here  and  there,  and 
whispered  in  their  ears,  supposed  that  they  were 
doing  great  things  in  the  fight  against  the  bill,  but 
that  was  only  another  time  when  they  deluded  their 
precious  selves.  They  did  their  reforming  chiefly 
at  banquets,  but  George  and  the  old  man  knew  a 
thing  or  two  about  politics  themselves,  and  George, 
standing  back  by  the  Democratic  cloak-room,  smok- 
ing his  little  cigarettes,  was  directing  that  fight  with 
the  party  lash  in  his  hand,  and  some  of  the  best  men 
on  the  floor  of  the  house  to  do  his  bidding.  He  was 
the  only  private  secretary  I  ever  knew  who  could  set 
an  army  in  the  field. 

"But  through  it  all  old  'Zeke  stood  there,  game  as 
ever,  with  a  hard,  cold  smile  on  his  face,  and  you 
could  hear  the  sharp,  monotonous  rap  of  his  gavel, 
rap,  rap,  rap,  neither  fast  nor  slow.  The  tumult 
did  not  die  during  the  reading  of  that  scathing  mes- 
sage, and  when  Hen's  ruined  voice  ceased,  and  he 
rolled  the  message  up  again  and  thrust  it  in  his  desk, 
'Zeke  smashed  his  gavel  down  and  I  heard  him  say : 

"  'Will  the  house  be  in  order?' 

"And  it  was  in  order,  for  'Zeke  knew  how  to  com- 


104  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

pel  order  in  that  bear-pit  when  he  wanted  to,  and  he 
never  raised  his  voice  to  do  it  either,  only  his  eye, 
and  the  gavel.  And  so,  when  they  were  quiet,  he 
said :  'The  question  is :  Shall  the  house  concur  with 
the  senate  in  the  passage  of  senate  bill  No.  106,  not- 
withstanding the  objections  of  the  governor?' 

"The  house  tried  to  break  away  from  him  again, 
but  he  held  it  in  his  gavel  fist,  drawing  the  curb 
tight,  and  turned  to  recognize  old  Long  John  Riley, 
who  was  standing  like  a  tall  tree  beside  his  desk, 
with  his  hand  upraised. 

"  'The  gentleman  from  Cook !' 

"  'Mr.  Speaker,'  said  Riley,  'I  move  the  previous 
question.' 

"There  was  another  roar,  but  'Zeke's  gavel  fell, 
and  his  eyes  blazed  black  again,  and  he  said : 

"  'The  gentleman  from  Cook  moves  the  previous 
question,  and  the  question  is:  Shall  the  main  ques- 
tion be  now  put?  Those  in  favor  of  this  question 
will  say  aye' — there  was  a  roar  of  ayes — 'and  those 
opposed  will  say  no.'  There  was  a  heavier  roar  of 
noes,  and  then  came  the  old  cry:  'Ayes  and  noes, 
ayes  and  noes,  Mr.  Speaker,  ayes  and  noes,  damn 
you,  don't  you  dare  to  shut  off  debate!'  But  'Zek'e 


HENDERSON    OF    GREENE          105 

only  smiled  and  his  gavel  cracked — and  they  were 
still.  Then  in  the  stillness  he  said : 

'  'Gentlemen  are  as  familiar  with  the  rules  as  is 
the  chair.  They  are  well  aware  that  the  chair  is 
powerless  to  order  a  roll-call  after  a  viva  voce  vote, 
unless  he  is  in  doubt  as  to  the  result,  the  demand  for 
the  yeas  and  nays  not  having  been  preferred  before 
the  question  had  been  put  to  the  house.  In  this 
instance' — and  the  splendid  old  fellow  swung  his 
gavel  to  his  ear,  and  the  smile  flickered  out  of  his 
face — 'in  this  instance  the  chair  is  not  in  doubt.  The 
ayes  seem  to  have  it,  the  ayes  have  it,  and  the  main 
question  is  ordered.'  The  hammer  fell  like  a  bolt, 
and  then  calmly  leaning  on  it,  his  eye  traveled 
around  over  the  turbulent  mob,  until  it  lit  on  George 
Herrick  and  his  little  band  of  dazed  reformers — and 
I  knew  he  was  thinking  of  the  old  man  over  in  the 
mansion  whom  he  hated  with  an  Indian's  hate — 
and  as  he  looked  George  in  the  eye,  the  cold  smile 
came  back,  and  he  said : 

"  'The  question  is :  Shall  the  house  concur  with 
the  senate  in  the  passage  of  senate  bill  No.  106, 
notwithstanding  the  objections  of  the  governor. 
Upon  this  question  those  in  favor  of  the  bill  will 


io6  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

vote  aye,  and  those  opposed  will  vote  no,  when  their 
names  are  called,  and  the  clerk  will  call  the  roll.' 
The  gavel  fell,  and  the  speaker,  holding  it  where  it 
had  fallen,  leaned  half  his  length  over  his  desk  and 
motioned  to  Hen  Harvey.  Hen  had  taken  off  his 
coat  and  vest  and  collar — he  would  call  that  roll 
himself — and  as  he  unbuttoned  his  cuffs,  inclining 
his  head  toward  the  speaker,  'Zeke  yelled  in  his  ear : 

"  'Now,  Hen,  damn  it,  call  that  roll  to  beat  all 
hell.' 

"Then  we  knew  that  the  Bailey  bill  fight  was  on 
to  a  finish.  We  had  had  our  first  big  battle  with  the 
reformers,  and  were  down  together  in  the  last  ditch. 
Whenever  a  bill  with  something  in  it  is  about  to 
pass  the  legislature,  a  strange  quality  steals  into  the 
atmosphere,  just  as  there  does  in  the  council  cham- 
ber in  Chicago  when  anything  is  to  be  pulled  off — 
don't  you  know?  There  is  a  forebodement,  an 
apprehensiveness,  that  electrifies  the  nerves  and  op- 
presses the  lungs.  I  felt  it  there  that  night.  We 
had  had  a  heavy  fight  to  pass  the  bill  in  the  first 
place,  and  now  we  had  to  override  a  veto!  It's 
hard  enough  to  get  the  seventy-seven  votes  that  con- 
stitute a  majority,  with  the  people  against  you— 


HENDERSON    OF    GREENE          107 

men  are  such  cowards — but  when  it  comes  to  round- 
ing up  two-thirds — a  hundred  and  two — it's  an  en- 
tirely different  problem.  We  had  been  working 
quietly  at  the  thing  for  days,  for  we  knew  the  veto 
was  coming,  and  that  the  old  man  would  wait  until 
the  last  night  to  send  it  in.  We  had  a  hundred 
and  one  tried  and  true  men  who  would  stick  to  the 
end.  The  hundred  and  second  was  Jim  Berry.  We 
had  his  promise,  and  believed  he  would  stay  in  line 
— though  he  was  afraid  of  his  constits — for  he  was 
poor  and  in  debt. 

"Judge  Hardin  came  and  sat  beside  me  that  we 
might  check  them  off  for  ourselves,  and  Hen  began 
calling  the  roll : 

"'Allen!' 

"'Aye!' 

"'Ambaugh!' 

"'Aye!' 

"'Anderson!' 

"'Aye!' 

"'Bartly!' 

"'Aye!' 

"The  leaders.  Jamison  over  on  the  Republican  side, 
and  Riley  on  the  Democratic,  sat  at  their  desks,  with 


io8  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

roll-calls,  at  which  they  thoughtfully  blew  the  smoke 
of  their  cigars  as  they  checked  off  the  progress  of  the 
vote.  They  appeared  as  unconcerned  as  the  cor- 
respondents. I  never  can  forget  the  drollery  of  the 
wink  Jamison  gave  me  as  he  voted  no — it  was  neces- 
sary to  have  some  one  who  had  voted  with  the 
majority  to  move  a  reconsideration  of  the  vote  in 
case  anything  happened.  'Zeke  did  not  resume  his 
seat  during  the  roll-call,  as  the  rules  permitted  him 
to  do,  but  stood  bending  over  his  desk  with  an  alert 
eye  on  the  cadets.  The  vote  up  to  this  point  was 
propitious,  but  'Zeke  knew,  and  Jamison  and  Riley 
knew,  and  Judge  Hardin  and  I  knew,  and  we  were 
not  so  sanguine  as  the  correspondents,  who  had 
already  begun  to  toss  sheets  of  copy  to  the  frowsy 
telegraph  boys,  running  to  and  fro  between  the  press 
gallery  and  the  Western  Union.  We  were  chiefly 
interested  just  then  whether  Berry  would  vote  right 
or  not.  I  was  keeping  an  eye  on  him  and  noticed 
that  he  was  beginning  to  fidget  in  his  seat,  and  chew 
his  cigar,  and  tear  paper  into  little  pieces.  And  the 
roll-call  went  on : 

"'Beel!' 

"'Aye!' 


HENDERSON    OF    GREENE          109 


"Bell!' 
"'No!' 


"Bell,  of  course,  was  on  the  other  side,  and  was 
standing  back  with  George  Herrick,  keeping  their 
fellows  in  line  and  cheering  up  the  reformers  from 
the  Municipal  League,  but  we  knew  his  vote  would 
have  its  effect  on  Berry,  so  I  pulled  the  speaker's 
coat-tail,  and  'Zeke  leaned  over  and  whispered 
hoarsely  to  the  clerk.  Hen  observed  a  lengthened 
pause  and  then  began  to  call  more  slowly.  Berry 
was  the  next  name. 

"'Berry!' Hen  drawled. 

"There  was  no  reply. 

"'Berry!' 

"There  was  no  reply. 

"Hen  looked  long  at  Berry,  and  the  poltroon  sat 
there  with  his  eyes  cast  down,  rolling  his  cigar 
around  and  around  in  his  mouth,  tearing  up  his  little 
flakes  of  paper,  and  swinging  from  side  to  side  in 
his  chair.  Then  Hen  called  the  next  name : 

"'Briggs!' 

"  'No !'  he  voted,  and  Berry  looked  up  for  the 
first  time  since  the  bill  had  come  over  from  the 


no  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

senate.  'Zeke  rapped  fiercely  with  his  gavel,  and  Hen 
paused.    Then  'Zeke  said  sharply : 

"  'The  chair  is  compelled  again  to  call  the  atten- 
tion of  gentlemen  to  rule  three,  which  prohibits 
smoking  in  the  hall  of  the  house.  The  chair  dislikes 
to  be  compelled  to  repeat  this  admonition  so  fre- 
quently, and  trusts  that  gentlemen  will  observe  the 
injunction  without  additional  suggestion.  The  clerk 
will  proceed  with  the  calling  of  the  roll.'  And  he 
smashed  the  broken  sounding-board  again  with  his 
gavel.  We  needed  time.  Some  of  the  members 
laughed,  but  that  only  gave  'Zeke  a  chance  to  gain 
more  time  by  rapping  for  order.  We  feared  the  ef- 
fect, however,  on  discipline.  Then  he  called  Brisbane, 
one  of  our  fellows,  and  he  didn't  vote.  I  grew  uneasy, 
and  Judge  Hardin  was  squirming  there  beside  me 
on  the  lounge.  When  I  thought  of  Berry  I  grew 
mad,  and  wondered  if  we  could  save  the  bill  without 
him.  At  that  instant  my  eye  happened  to  light  upon 
Henderson  of  Greene.  He  was  standing  under  the 
gallery  just  as  he  had  been  standing  all  evening. 
He  seemed  not  to  have  moved.  He  had  his  hands 
clasped  awkwardly  behind  him,  and  was  chewing  his 
tobacco  contemplatively.  And  here  was  my  chance ! 


HENDERSON    OF    GREENE          in 

I  thought  of  the  pathetic  biography  in  the  house 
directory.  I  thought  of  his  wife  as  I  had  seen  the 
poor  old  thing  going  around  town  with  him  the  week 
before.  I  thought  of  the  way  he  had  worked  and 
toiled  for  her  and  all  those  children,  and  how  little 
life  held  for  him.  If  I  could  get  him  for  the  bill 
in  Berry's  place,  the  Chicago  people,  I  knew,  would 
be  liberal  with  him,  and  he  could  go  back  home 
better  off  in  a  financial  way  than  when  he  came. 
And  so  I  motioned  to  Burke,  and  when  he  came  up 
I  told  him  to  ask  the  gentleman  from  Greene  to 
meet  me  at  once  in  the  speaker's  room,  and  I  retired 
to  await  him.  Presently,  in  his  clumsy  way,  he 
shuffled  in.  He  came  close  up  to  me,  and  when  I 
had  given  the  poor  devil  a  cigar  he  bent  over  to  hear 
what  I  might  have  to  say.  I  asked  him  how  he 
was  going  to  vote  on  the  bill,  and  he  said  he  thought 
he  would  vote  against  it,  inasmuch  as  the  governor 
had  said  it  was  a  bad  piece  of  legislation.  Well, 
there  was  no  time  to  discuss  that  phase  of  the  ques- 
tion. 

"  TLook  here,  comrade,'  I  said,  'this  is  a  bill  that 
concerns  Chicago  alone — it  does  not  affect  and  can 


112  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

not  affect  you  or  your  constituents  one  way  or  the 
other,  can  it?' 

"  'No/  he  said;  'reckon  not.' 

1  'They  don't  even  know  down  in  Greene  County 
that  there  is  such  a  bill,  do  they  ?' 

"  'Reckon  not,'  he  said,  'leastways  I  hain't  heerd 
ary  one  say  nothin'  'bout  it.' 

"  'Of  course  you  haven't/  I  said,  'and  what's 
more,  you  never  will.  Now,  see  here/  I  said,  Til 
be  quite  frank  with  you,  for  I  like  you' — he  cast  a 
strange,  sidling  glance  at  me,  distrustful,  like  all 
farmers — 'for  I  like  you/  I  said,  'and  I  want  to  do 
something  for  you.  The  men  who  are  promoting 
this  legislation  have  exactly  enough  votes  to  pass  it 
over  the  governor's  veto,  and  it's  going  to  pass.  On 
this  ballot  they  will  have  just  ninety-one  votes — one 
of  their  men  will  vote  against  it  to  move  a  recon- 
sideration if  necessary,  and  about  ten  will  not  vote. 
When  the  absentees  are  called,  these  ten  will  vote 
for  the  bill,  and  on  the  verification,  you'll  see  others 
tumbling  into  the  band-wagon.  Now,  your  vote  is 
not  needed,  as  you  see,  and,  cast  for  the  bill  or 
against  it,  can  have  no  appreciable  effect  upon  the 
result.  The  bill  will  pass  without  your  vote,  and 


HENDERSON    OF    GREENE          113 

you  can  not  defeat  it,  for  the  hundred  and  two  will 
stand  firm  in  the  end.  One  of  them,  however — it 
is  Berry,  I  don't  mind  telling  you — is  trying,  at  the 
last  minute,  to  force  us  into  raising  his  price.  You 
can  take  his  place,  you  can  have  his  price  of  the  easy 
money  with  his  raise  added,  if  you  will  go  out  there 
and  vote  for  the  bill.' 

"He  stood  looking  at  the  floor,  ruminating. 

"  'I  know,  Henderson,'  I  continued,  'that  you  are 
a  poor  man,  that  you  have  a  large  family,  that  you 
have  to  work  hard  for  a  living.  You  are  going  home 
to-morrow,  maybe  not  to  come  back  here  any  more, 
and  you  can  go  if  you  wish,  with  three  thousand 
dollars  clean,  cold  cash  in  your  pocket.  What  do 
you  say?' 

"The  old  man  turned  his  face  away  and  began  to 
fumble  with  his  horny  fingers  at  his  chin.  His  hand 
trembled  as  with  a  palsy.  We  could  hear  the  roll- 
call  going  on  outside : 

"'Donavin!' 

"'Aye!' 

"'Donnelly!' 

"'Aye!' 

"  'Evans!' 


ii4  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

"'No!' 

"'Finerty!' 

"'Aye!' 

"  'Fitzmeyer !' 

"'Aye!' 

"'Flanigan!' 

"'Aye!' 

"  'Hear  them  ?'  I  said.  'It's  nearly  up  to  you — 
what  do  you  say?' 

"The  old  man's  lips  quivered,  and  his  calloused 
fingers  grated  in  his  beard.  He  opened  his  lips  to 
speak,  but  his  jaw  moved  helplessly.  And  we  heard 
Hen's  voice  back  there  in  the  house  calling — calling 
so  that  you  could  have  heard  him  over  in  the  Leland 
bar-room : 

"'Geisbach!' 

"'No!' 

"  'He  is  one  of  those  who  will  change,'  I  said. 

"'Giger!' 

"There  was  no  response.  'He'll  be  all  right  when 
they  call  the  absentees,'  I  said. 

"'Gordon!' 

"'No!' 

"  'Griesheimer !' 


HENDERSON    OF    GREENE          115 

"'Aye!' 

"  'Hear  them?'  I  asked.  The  H's  came  next,  and 
the  old  man,  still  fumbling  with  his  chin,  and  with- 
out turning  his  head  began  to  talk : 

"  'Baldwin/  he  said,  'you're  right.  I  am  a  poor 
man.  I  have  a  wife  an'  eight  children.  To-morrow 
I'm  goin'  back  home,  an'  o'  Monday  I'm  goin'  to 
hunt  a  job — hunt  a  job  in  the  harves'  field.  I've 
worked  hard  all  my  life.  I  'spect  to  work  hard  all 
my  life.  I'll  keep  on  huntin'  jobs  in  the  harves' 
fields.  I'll  probably  die  in  the  poor-house.  I'll  be 
buried  in  the  potter's  field.  God  knows  what'll  be- 
come of  that  woman  and  them  children.' 

"He  nodded  his  head  as  in  assent  to  an  indis- 
putable proposition,  and  his  eyes  widened  as  if  in 
fright.  They  were  looking  down  the  barren  years 
before  him,  and  I  felt  in  that  moment  glad  of  my 
power  to  brighten  them. 

"  'Hallen!'  we  heard  Hen  call. 

"'No!' 

"  'Henderson  of  Effingham. 

"'Aye!' 

"The  old  man  straightened  out  his  long,  lank 


n6  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

figure,  and  then  suddenly  he  turned  and  looked  me 
in  the  eyes. 

'  'But,  Baldwin/  he  said,  'I  come  here  last  Jan- 
uary an  honest  man,  and  to-morrow  I'm  goin'  back, 
back  to  ol'  Greene,  back  to  my  people,  back  to  that 
woman  an'  them  children,  an'  Baldwin' — he  gulped 
the  word — 'Baldwin,  I'm  goin'  back  an  honest  man.' 

'  'Henderson  of  Greene!'  Hen's  voice  called,  and 
the  old  man  stalked  into  the  corridor  and  thundered 
'No !'  in  a  trumpet  note." 

The  lobbyist  ceased.  The  train  had  stopped  at 
Chenoa,  and  they  could  hear  the  breathing  of  the 
engine,  breathing  as  a  living  thing  when  it  rests. 
The  noise  ceased  presently,  and  the  silence  of  the 
wide  country  night  ensued.  They  heard  only  the 
notes  that  came  from  the  throats  of  frogs,  and  the 
stridulent  drumming  of  the  cicadse.  Baldwin  looked 
at  the  two  politicians,  expecting  some  comment.  The 
oscitant  Healy  looked  out  of  the  window,  into  the 
vast  darkness  brooding  over  the  prairie  town.  Jen- 
nings sat  meditatively  pulling  at  his  moist  mustache, 
an  expression  of  perplexity  in  his  countenance,  the 
wrinkles  of  increasing  concentration  of  mind  gath- 
ering in  his  brow.  Presently,  without  a  word,  he 


HENDERSON    OF    GREENE          117 

rose  and  left  the  compartment.  When  he  returned 
he  was  treading  in  his  stockings,  his  coat  and  waist- 
coat and  collar  had  been  removed,  his  suspenders 
were  hanging  at  his  hips.  He  was  evidently  pre- 
paring for  his  berth.  Baldwin  meanwhile  had 
pressed  a  button,  and  sent  Gentry,  the  aged  porter, 
now  in  white  jacket,  for  his  bag,  and  laid  out  on  the 
seat  beside  him  his  pajamas,  and  a  traveler's  case 
filled  with  silver  toilet  articles.  Jennings  lifted  his 
own  big  valise  to  his  knees,  and  from  its  depths  drew 
a  bottle,  wrapped  heavily  in  a  newspaper.  He  held 
one  of  the  heavy  little  glasses  under  the  faucet  of 
the  water-cooler,  and  allowed  the  water  to  trickle 
into  it.  Then,  peeling  back  the  paper  from  his  bot- 
tle, he  took  a  long  pull  from  its  naked  neck,  and 
passed  it  to  Baldwin.  As  he  did  so,  his  brows  still 
knotted  in  perplexity,  he  asked : 

"What'd  you  say  that  feller's  name  was?" 

"Henderson." 

"Henderson  of  Greene,  eh?" 

"Yes." 

Jennings  threw  back  his  head  and  tilted  the  water, 
deadly  cold  from  the  ice  and  tasting  of  smoke,  into 
his  throat,  and  when  he  had  rinsed  his  mouth,  he 


n8  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

said,  with  the  happy  expression  of  a  man  who  has 
resolved  a  doubt : 

"Oah,  yes,  John  Henderson,  of  Greene.  He  lived 
out  at  Rabb's  Corners.  Yes,  that's  him;  the  gov- 
ernor 'p'inted  him  public  administrator  of  Greene 
County  right  after  that  session." 

The  train  lurched,  and  Jennings,  bracing  himself, 
wrapped  up  his  bottle  and  stowed  it  carefully  away 
in  his  valise.  And  swinging  the  valise  in  one  hand 
and  with  the  other  hitching  up  his  trousers,  now 
beginning  to  drag  at  his  heels,  he  stepped  away  in 
his  stockinged  feet  to  his  berth. 

Baldwin  began  to  wind  his  watch,  and  the  Limited, 
with  its  three  hundred  tons,  and  its  tossing  heads 
full  of  the  schemes  of  politics,  went  careering  away 
on  its  paper  wheels  toward  the  capital  ot  Illinois. 


SENATE  BILL  578 

HE  was  a  page  in  the  Illinois  legislature — 
"House  Page  No.  7,"  the  bright  metal  badge 
on  the  lapel  of  his  little  coat  said — and  all  day  long 
he  heard  nothing  but  "Here,  boy !"  from  city  mem- 
bers, or  "Hey,  bub!"  from  country  members,  or 
"Hi,  there,  kid!"  from  the  other  pages,  or  "Get 
a  move  on  you,  Seven!"  as  the  chief  page  snapped 
his  ringers  at  him  in  his  lordly  way.  His  real  name 
was  James,  but  he  never  heard  that,  now  that  his 
father  was  dead.  His  mother  called  him  Jamie. 

Jamie  was  kept  very  busy  and  yet  he  enjoyed  his 
legislative  duties.  He  felt  that  it  was  a  big  thing  to 
help,  even  in  his  humble  little  way,  to  make  laws  for 
all  the  people  in  the  state.  It  was  pretty  important, 
for  instance,  to  carry  a  paper  from  some  member  up 
to  the  clerk's  desk,  for  after  the  clerk  had  read  it, 
on  three  different  days,  and  the  house  had  voted  on 

119 


120  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

it  and  passed  it,  and  after  it  had  been  read  on  three 
different  days  and  passed  by  the  senate,  and  after 
the  governor  had  read  it  and  thought  over  it  as 
he  walked  back  and  forth  between  the  executive 
mansion  and  the  state  house,  and  had  written  his 
name  on  it,  it  became  a  law,  and  everybody  in  the 
state  had  to  obey  it  or  go  to  jail. 

The  people  were  called  constituents,  they  seemed 
to  be  divided  up  among  all  the  members  of  the 
legislature;  everybody  in  the  state  house  had  his 
constituents.  Jamie  felt  that,  as  a  legislator,  he 
should  have  some  constituents,  but  he  couldn't  decide 
who  his  constituents  were,  and  he  didn't  like  to  ask 
anybody.  But  finally  he  thought  of  his  mother,  and 
when  he  told  her  that  she  was  his  constituent  she 
took  his  little  face  between  her  two  hands  and  kissed 
him  and  pressed  her  cheek  to  his.  Her  cheek  was 
moist  with  tears. 

If  everybody  in  the  state  house  had  been  as  good 
to  his  constituents  as  Jamie,  Illinois  would  have 
been  a  very  happy  place  in  which  to  live.  When  his 
father  died,  Jamie's  mother  had  to  take  in  sewing 
and  to  work  hard  to  keep  things  going.  She  was 
sad  much  of  the  time,  and  always  looked  tired, 


SENATE    BILL    578  121 

and  this  made  Jamie  sad.  He  longed  to  help  her, 
but  he  did  not  know  what  to  do.  Then  a  friend  of 
theirs,  Mr.  Woodbridge,  said  he  could  get  Jamie  a 
place  in  the  house  as  a  page  boy — they  always  say 
"page  boy"  in  the  legislature — and  one  morning 
Jamie's  mother  dressed  him  in  his  Sunday  suit  and 
sent  him  up  to  the  state  house  with  Mr.  Wood- 
bridge. 

And  so  he  became  a  page.  He  was  paid  a  dollar 
and  a  half  a  day.  Every  twenty  days  the  pay- 
rolls were  made  out,  and  Jamie  would  go  down  to 
the  treasury,  sign  his  name  in  a  big,  round  hand, 
"James  Horn,"  and  then  proudly  take  home  to  his 
mother  thirty  dollars  in  fresh,  crisp,  green  bills! 
His  mother  had  wished  him  to  stay  in  school,  but, 
of  course,  being  a  page  was  better  than  going  to 
school.  There  were  no  books  to  study,  and  then 
you  got  out  so  much  earlier  every  day!  And  more 
than  all,  you  couldn't  take  home  money  from  school ! 

The  house  met  every  morning  at  ten  o'clock,  and 
after  the  speaker  had  taken  his  place  under  the  can- 
opy where  the  beautiful  flag  was  draped,  and  had 
rapped  for  order,  and  the  chaplain  had  prayed,  the 
clerk  would  call  the  roll  for  the  introduction  of  bills. 


122  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

This  was  Jamie's  busiest  time.  Everybody  would 
have  bills  to  introduce  or  petitions  from  his  constitu- 
ents to  present,  and  for  an  hour  Jamie  would  be 
scampering  up  and  down  the  aisles  between  the 
members'  desks  and  the  clerk's  desk.  But  after  that 
he  had  a  breathing  spell,  and  could  sit  on  the  speak- 
er's steps  and  whisper  to  the  speaker's  page,  or  look 
about  over  the  house  and  watch  the  members.  There 
were  grave  members  from  the  country  districts  with 
long  whiskers  and  steel-bowed  spectacles,  there 
were  city  members  with  fancy  vests  and  diamonds, 
there  were  Irish  members  and  German  members, 
there  was  a  Polish  member  named  Kumaszynski, 
and  there  was  a  negro  member,  who  sat  away  back 
on  the  Republican  side  almost  under  the  galleries, 
and  was  very  quiet,  and  wore  black  clothes  and  gold 
eye-glasses. 

But  there 'was  one  whom  Jamie  liked  above  all 
the  others.  He  was  tall,  with  smiling  blue  eyes  that 
saw  everything,  and  though  his  black  hair  was 
patched  with  gray  at  the  temples,  his  face  was  that 
of  a  young  man,  clean-shaven  and  ruddy.  He  was 
a  Chicago  member  and  the  most  fashionably  dressed 
man  in  the  house — he  wore  a  different  suit  of  clothes 


SENATE   BILL    578  123 

every  day.  He  was  a  lawyer  and  his  name  was 
Bronson  Meredith.  Jamie  loved  him  the  first  time 
he  ever  saw  him,  and  whenever  Mr.  Meredith 
clapped  his  hands  Jamie  would  spring  to  his  side 
before  any  other  page  had  started,  and  if  by  chance 
Mr.  Meredith  ever  gave  a  resolution  or  a  bill  to  any 
of  the  other  boys  Jamie  felt  a  twinge  of  jealousy 
at  his  heart. 

Sometimes  he  would  loiter  an  instant  beside  Mr. 
Meredith's  desk,  and  a  smile  from  him  made  Jamie 
happy  all  that  day.  Jamie  longed  to  touch  him  with 
his  hand,  but  dared  not.  The  only  thing  he  could  do 
was  to  pat  Mr.  Meredith's  overcoat,  with  its  soft, 
silken  lining,  as  it  hung  on  its  hook  in  the  cloak- 
room. At  night,  lying  in  his  bed,  Jamie  would  close 
his  eyes  and  see  Mr.  Meredith  standing  beside  his 
desk,  his  lips  slightly  parted  in  a  smile,  showing  his 
white  teeth  and  replying  so  sharply  to  members  who 
interrupted  him  that  they  would  shoot  down  into 
their  seats  with  red  faces  and  all  the  other  members 
would  laugh,  while  Mr.  Meredith,  raising  his  hand, 
would  go  on  with  his  speech,  saying : 

"Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  as  I  was  about  to  remark 


124  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

when  I  yielded  to  the  perplexing  question  of  the 
distinguished  gentleman  from  Pike — " 

Mr.  Meredith  was  not  often  on  his  feet,  as  they 
say  in  legislative  bodies,  but  when  he  took  part 
in  a  debate  all  the  other  members  kept  still  and 
listened  with  their  hands  behind  their  ears,  which 
they  didn't  do  when  any  one  else  spoke.  Mr.  Mere- 
dith was  a  leader — many  called  him  a  reformer. 
Jamie  decided  that  when  he  grew  up  he  would  be 
a  lawyer,  a  leader  and  a  reformer. 

Now,  when  the  session  was  about  over  there  was 
a  bill  in  the  house  which  almost  all  the  Chicago 
members  hoped  to  see  made  into  a  law;  but  Mr. 
Meredith  was  against  it.  The  country  members, 
too,  for  the  most  part,  were  against  the  bill,  and 
Jamie  noticed  that  when  it  first  came  over  from  the 
senate  there  was  a  stir  in  the  house,  and  that  every 
time  it  came  up,  after  that,  all  the  members  would 
rush  in  from  the  cloak-rooms,  or  the  lobbies,  or  the 
supreme  court  library,  or  the  rotunda  of  the  state 
house,  to  speak  about  it  and  to  vote  on  it. 

Jamie  did  not  understand  the  bill,  or  know  what 
it  was  for;  he  only  knew  that  it  was  something 
about  a  franchise  in  Chicago,  and  that  every  week 


SENATE    BILL    578  125 

a  party  of  rich-looking  gentlemen  would  come  down 
to  Springfield  and  stand  about  in  the  house,  or  sit 
on  the  big  red  lounge  behind  the  speaker's  chair, 
and  whisper  and  try  to  get  men  to  vote  for  it. 

And  Jamie  knew,  too,  that  it  was  called  senate 
bill  No.  578;  he  impressed  that  number  firmly  on 
his  mind  and  could  never  forget  it.  He  soon  ob- 
served that  on  any  day  when  he  saw  S.  B.  578  on 
the  calendar — which  is  a  kind  of  program  printed 
every  morning  to  tell  what  bills  are  coming  up— 
Mr.  Meredith  would  be  on  his  feet  and  make  mo- 
tions and  speeches,  and  that  the  gentlemen  on  the 
speaker's  red  lounge  would  scowl'  at  him  and  the 
other  city  members  try  to  answer  him.  And  Jamie 
noticed  that  Mr.  Meredith  always  succeeded  in  hav- 
ing the  bill  referred  back  to  some  committee,  or 
did  something  to  keep  it  from  becoming  a  law. 

Jamie  read  the  newspapers  now  and  then.  He 
always  turned  first  to  the  base-ball  news — the  season 
was  just  opening — and  then  to  the  legislative  news, 
although  he  never  read  that  as  carefully  as  he  did 
the  base-ball  news.  Often  he  saw  Mr.  Meredith's 
name  in  the  types — the  papers  said  he  was  making 
a  gallant  fight  against  the  franchise  grab.  Jamie 


126  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

hoped  with  all  his  soul  that  Mr.  Meredith  would 
win  in  that  fight ;  not,  of  course,  that  he  cared  about 
the  franchise  grab — he  had,  like  many  older  persons, 
very  hazy  ideas  about  that — but  he  always  wished  to 
see  Mr.  Meredith  win. 

The  spring  had  come,  and  as  the  legislature 
usually  ends  early  in  June,  and  the  work  was  piling 
up,  the  house  was  meeting  at  nine  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  The  house  adjourned  every  Friday  at 
noon,  in  order  that  the  members  might  go  home  over 
Sunday,  and  it  didn't  meet  again  until  Monday 
afternoon  at  five  o'clock,  and  then  only  for  a  few 
minutes.  The  members  who  had  gone  home  did  not 
get  back  until  Tuesday  morning,  and  there  were 
never  many  there  Monday  afternoon,  not  even  a 
quorum,  and  it  was  always  understood  that  nothing 
was  to  be  done  at  that  session.  The  chaplain  prayed, 
the  journal  of  Friday's  session  was  read  and  ap- 
proved, and  the  house  adjourned  until  Tuesday 
morning. 

But  one  Monday  afternoon  when  Jamie  reached 
the  hall  of  the  house  he  was  surprised  to  find  a  big 
body  of  members  there — almost  all  the  Chicago 
members  except  Mr.  Meredith.  Those  rich  gentle- 


SENATE    BILL    578  127 

men  were  there,  too,  sitting  on  the  speaker's  red 
lounge.  Jamie  looked  for  Mr.  Meredith — he  was 
not  there.  He  thought  instantly  of  senate  bill  578 
— something  was  up!  They  were  going  to  try  to 
pass  senate  bill  578 — that  was  why  the  gentlemen 
were  there  on  the  speaker's  red  lounge;  that  was 
why  the  Chicago  members  had  come  down  to 
Springfield  on  the  Monday  afternoon  train  instead 
of  waiting  for  the  Monday  night  train.  Jamie  was 
worried. 

It  was  a  balmy  spring  day  with  a  sky  blue  and 
tender,  and  a  soft  wind  that  wafted  strange  sweet 
country  smells  about,  smells  that  filled  Jamie  with 
dreamy  longings  and  a  kind  of  pleasant  sadness. 
The  speaker  gently  tapped  with  his  gavel ;  the  good 
old  chaplain  rose  and  spread  out  his  white  hands. 

"O  Lord,"  he  prayed,  "we  thank  Thee  that  the 
winter  is  past,  that  the  rain  is  over  and  gone,  that 
the  flowers  appear  upon  the  earth,  that  the  time  of 
the  singing  of  birds  is  come." 

The  words  stole  sweetly  in  upon  Jamie's  soul.  He 
sat  on  the  steps,  looking  out  of  the  open  windows 
at  the  tender  young  leaves  of  the  maple  trees — it 
was  just  the  way  he  used  to  look  out  of  the  open 


128  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

windows  in  school  before  vacation  came,  when  he 
thought  of  the  swimming-hole  out  at  Sycamore  and 
of  going  barefooted.  It  was  all  so  calm  and  peace- 
ful. But  with  the  chaplain's  "Amen !"  the  speaker's 
gavel  cracked  and  the  buzzing  noise  peculiar  to  the 
house  began  again.  And  Jamie  awoke  from  his 
reveries  with  a  start.  He  had  heavier  things  to 
think  of  now;  he  was  almost  a  man;  he  was  in  the 
legislature.  Senate  bill  578  was  on  its  third  reading, 
the  gang  was  present,  and  Mr.  Meredith  had  not 
come.  Jamie  was  troubled,  and  sighed.  He  must 
attend  to  his  duties — he  must  do  something. 

Jamie  looked  over  all  the  faces  before  him;  no- 
where could  he  find  one  man  he  could  trust  as  a 
friend  of  Mr.  Meredith. 

He  glanced  at  the  door  with  a  lingering  hope 
that  Mr.  Meredith  would  appear,  but  of  course  he 
did  not  come.  Then  Jamie  slowly  hitched  down  the 
speaker's  stairs,  a  step  at  a  time,  and,  reaching  the 
floor,  slipped  over  by  the  reporters'  boxes — empty 
that  afternoon,  for  the  correspondents,  like  the  legis- 
lators, never  returned  until  Tuesday  morning — and 
thence  into  the  side  aisle,  under  the  gallery,  and  to 
the  cloak-room.  There  he  got  his  cap,  looked  long- 


SENATE    BILL    578  129 

ingly  at  Mr.  Meredith's  hook,  empty  now,  with  no 
satin-lined  overcoat  for  him  to  nestle  lovingly 
against  for  a  blissful  second,  and  then  he  went  out 
into  the  hall  under  the  huge  dome.  No  one,  of 
course,  observed  a  mere  page  boy,  but  Jamie  felt,  as 
he  clicked  his  hurrying  little  heels  across  the  mar- 
ble floors,  that  something  was  about  to  poke  him  in 
his  cold,  unprotected  back — the  fear  of  a  rear  attack 
that  boyhood  inherits  from  its  far-distant  savage 
ancestry.  Jamie  didn't  take  the  elevator,  or  the 
grand  staircase,  but  reached  the  main  floor  by  leap- 
ing two  steps  at  a  time  down  a  narrow  side  stairway, 
unused  and  dark. 

Then  he  flew  out  of  the  east  entrance,  ran  down 
the  wide  walk  and  on  up  Capitol  Avenue  for  four 
long  blocks — ran  as  fast  as  he  could  pump  his  little 
short  legs  to  the  hotel  where  he  knew  Mr.  Meredith 
lived  when  he  was  at  the  capital.  But  Jamie  had  no 
hope  of  finding  him  there  that  afternoon.  He  went  to 
the  hotel  simply  because  he  did  not  know  where  else 
to  go — that  was  all.  Rushing  into  the  hotel  and 
up  to  the  clerk's  desk,  he  put  his  chin  over  its  edge 
and,  as  the  clerk  leaned  down  with  his  face  almost 
in  Jamie's  face,  the  boy  panted : 


130  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Is — now — Honorable  Bronson  Meredith  in  ?" 

The  clerk  smiled  and  Jamie  blushed,  fearing  the 
clerk  was  making  fun  of  him.  And  his  heart  sank 
— he  might  have  known  Mr.  Meredith  was  not  in. 

"Whom  did  you  say?"  asked  the  clerk. 

"Honorable  Bronson  Meredith — the  gentleman 
from  Cook — " 

The  clerk  was  knitting  his  brows,  though  the 
wrinkles  about  his  lips  were  twitching  as  if  he  found 
it  hard  to  keep  them  from  rippling  out  into  smiles. 
Jamie  thought  the  clerk  was  wonderfully  stupid  not 
to  know  such  a  great  man  as  Mr.  Meredith,  and  he 
added,  in  order  to  jog  the  man's  memory  a  little : 

"You  know — the  reformer." 

The  clerk  straightened  up,  placed  his  hands  on 
his  hips,  threw  back  his  head  and  laughed.  Jamie 
stared  at  him  with  wide  eyes — he  saw  nothing  to 
laugh  at,  especially  when  senate  bill  578  was  coming 
up.  Presently  the  clerk  took  one  of  his  hands  from 
his  side  and  dropped  it  on  the  big  bell  beside  the 
register,  and  as  it  clanged  out  in  the  empty  lobby, 
he  shouted  in  his  laughing  voice : 

"Front!" 

A  bell-boy  in  buttons  slid  to  the  desk  just  as  a 


SENATE    BILL    578  131 

page  boy  does  in  the  house  when  a  member  claps 
his  hands.  The  bell-boy  and  Jamie  looked  each  other 
all  over  from  head  to  toe  in  the  instant  they  stood 
there  facing  each  other,  and  the  clerk  began : 

"Go  see  if  Mr.  Meredith—" 

And  just  then  a  tall  form  appeared  around  the 
corner  of  a  wall,  and  Jamie  looked  up. 

It  was  Mr.  Meredith  himself,  as  smiling  as  the 
spring,  with  a  bunch  of  violets  in  the  lapel  of  his 
new  light  coat.  Jamie  sprang  at  him. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Meredith,"  he  exclaimed,  raising  his 
clasped  hands  almost  appealingly,  "come — quick! 
Come  quick !" 

"Why,  what's  the  matter?"  said  Mr.  Meredith, 
halting  in  surprise. 

"They've  got  senate  bill  578  up!" 

Mr.  Meredith's  eyes  opened ;  his  face  lost  its  mild 
expression. 

"What  do  you  know  about  senate  bill  578?" 

Jamie  took  him  by  the  coat — he  dared  at  last  to 
lay  hands  on  his  sacred  person — and  tugged  as  he 
said: 

"Oh,  honest — Mr.  Meredith — honest — cross  my 
heart  they  have — you'll  be  too  late!" 


132  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

Mr.  Meredith  looked  at  the  pleading  lad  closely, 
and  then  suddenly  exclaimed : 

"Oh,  yes!  You're  one  of  the  page  boys."  And 
then  he  ran  as  fast  as  he  could  through  the  lobby, 
down  the  steps  and  across  the  sidewalk,  Jamie  after 
him. 

"Come  on !'  cried  Mr.  Meredith,  as  he  stooped  to 
plunge  into  a  carriage  at  the  curb,  dragging  Jamie  in 
after  him,  and  shouting  to  the  driver : 

"The  state  house — fast  as  you  can  drive!" 

The  driver  whirled  his  carriage  about  in  Sixth 
Street,  and  as  Mr.  Meredith  drew  in  his  head  and 
slammed  the  heavy  door  he  shouted : 

"Faster  there — I'll  double  your  fare!" 

The  carriage  lurched  around  the  corner,  the  lash 
of  the  driver's  whip  writhed  in  the  air,  and  the 
horses  went  galloping  with  the  rattling  old  hack 
down  Capitol  Avenue.  And  as  the  carriage  pitched 
and  rocked  Jamie  was  supremely  happy — he  had 
done  what  he  could,  and,  better  than  all,  he  was 
sitting  beside  Mr.  Meredith  and  actually  riding  in 
the  same  hack  with  him ! 

Mr.  Meredith  was  silent  until  the  carnage  whirled 
into  the  state  house  grounds  and  the  horses,  breath- 


SENATE   BILL    578  133 

ing  heavily,  were  plunging  up  the  driveway  toward 
the  north  portico.  Then  he  turned  and  said : 

"How'd  they  know  I  was  in  town?" 

Jamie  looked  up  in  surprise. 

"Who?"  he  said. 

"Why,"  replied  Mr.  Meredith,  "whoever  sent 
you." 

Jamie  felt  hurt. 

"But  no  one  sent  me,  Mr.  Meredith,"  he  said ;  "I 
just  came." 

"And  how  did  you  know  I  was  here?" 

"I  guessed." 

Mr.  Meredith  was  thoughtful  for  an  instant  and 
then  said : 

"But  why  did  you  come  ?" 

Jamie  blushed. 

"I — I — I — now — "  he  stammered.  "I  don't  like 
to  tell."  And  he  hid  his  face  against  Mr.  Meredith's 
sleeve. 

The  carriage  stopped,  the  driver  leaped  from  his 
box  and  flung  open  the  door.  Mr.  Meredith  sprang 
out,  leaped  up  the  stone  steps,  ran  down  the  corri- 
dors, dashed  into  the  elevator  and  was  shot  up  to 
the  third  floor.  Jamie  had  been  compelled  to  run 


134  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

faster  than  he  ever  did  in  his  life  to  keep  up  with 
him.  He  was  nearly  pinched  by  the  iron  door  of 
the  elevator  as  the  man  slid  it  shut. 

But  he  was  close  at  Mr.  Meredith's  heels  when 
he  ran  into  the  house.  The  few  senators,  having 
just  concluded  a  perfunctory  Monday  afternoon  ses- 
sion over  in  their  more  or  less  solemn  chamber, 
were  bustling  into  the  hall  of  the  house,  evidently 
expecting  something  of  interest  to  occur.  They 
pressed  by  the  doorkeeper,  and  as  they  entered 
Jamie  heard  the  speaker  cry : 

"The  gentleman  from  Cook  asks  unanimous  con- 
sent to  have  senate  bill  578  taken  up  out  of  the 
regular  order,  read  at  large  a  third  time,  and  put 
upon  its  passage.  Are  there  any  objections?" 

The  speaker  raised  his  gavel,  waited  an  instant, 
and  said : 

"The  chair  hears — " 

But  suddenly  a  voice  beside  Jamie  rang  out  like 
a  bugle : 

"Object!" 

The  speaker  looked  up  in  amazement.  The  mem- 
bers of  the  gang  turned  about  in  their  seats  with 
startled,  guilty  faces;  the  rich  gentlemen  on  the 


SENATE    BILL    578  135 

speaker's  red  lounge  leaned  forward  with  pained 
expressions.  Mr.  Meredith  was  striding  down  the 
center  aisle,  his  hat  in  his  hand,  his  face  red,  his  eyes 
on  fire. 

Half-way  down  the  aisle  he  halted,  and  once  more 
shouted  in  that  fearless  note : 

"I  object!  A  million  people  in  Chicago  to-night 
are  waiting  to  hear  from  this  house  on  this  franchise 
bill — I  dare  you  to  take  it  up  in  this  star-chamber 
session !" 

Mr.  Meredith's  hand  swept  a  wide  arc  that  in- 
cluded the  whole  house  as  he  flung  his  defiance,  and 
then  he  stood  glaring  at  them  all.  The  eyes  that 
met  Mr.  Meredith's  eyes  quailed ;  the  house  was  still. 
No  one  rose,  no  one  replied  to  him. 

Then  after  a  long  minute  of  this  painful  silence 
the  speaker,  lowering  his  head  until  Jamie  could  not 
see  his  face,  said  in  a  low  voice : 

"Objections  are  heard." 

And  so  the  franchise  grab  bill  was  not  taken  up 
that  day  after  all. 

The  session  was  very  short  after  that,  and  when 
the  house  adjourned  Mr.  Meredith  went  down  to  the 
speaker's  dais.  The  speaker  looked  up  as  if  he 


136  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

thought  Mr.  Meredith  was  coming  to  speak  to  him, 
but  Mr.  Meredith  stopped  at  the  steps,  and  taking 
Jamie's  little  hand  he  pressed  it  in  his  own  big  palm 
and  said : 

"Come  with  me." 

It  was  the  proudest  moment  of  Jamie's  life  as  he 
walked  out  of  the  noisy  chamber,  through  the  crowd 
of  angry,  baffled  members,  past  the  staring  pages,  by 
the  wondering  doorkeepers,  and  so  on  out  into  the 
rotunda.  They  walked  down  the  great  white  stair- 
case, and  as  they  were  passing  around  the  polished 
brass  railing  of  the  balcony  on  the  second  floor 
Mr.  Meredith  said,  as  if  suddenly  reminded  of 
something : 

"Beg  your  pardon,  but  what's  your  name  ?" 

"James  Horn,"  replied  Jamie. 

They  kept  on  and  Jamie  wondered  where  they 
were  going,  until  they  turned  into  the  governor's 
offices.  Jamie's  heart  leaped  suddenly.  Surely  this 
was  a  day  of  big  surprises,  thought  he. 

"Is  the  governor  in?"  Mr.  Meredith  asked  of  the 
governor's  private  secretary. 

"Yes — just  go  right  in,  Mr.  Meredith,"  and  in 


SENATE   BILL    578  137 

another  instant  Jamie  was  standing  beside  Mr.  Mere- 
dith in  the  presence  of  the  governor. 

The  governor  rose  as  they  entered,  and  looked 
first  at  Mr.  Meredith,  then  lowered  his  kind  blue 
eyes  and  fixed  them  on  Jamie. 

"Governor,"  said  Mr.  Meredith,  "I  wish  to  pre- 
sent my  little  friend,  Master  James  Horn." 

The  governor  bowed,  took  Jamie's  hand  in  his 
own  and  said  in  his  soft  voice: 

"I'm  very  glad  to  meet  you,  Master  Horn,  I'm 
sure." 

Jamie  felt  himself  tingle  all  through  at  the  gov- 
ernor's words. 

"Master  Horn,  Governor,"  continued  Mr.  Mere- 
dith, "is  a  page  boy  in  the  house,  and  to-day,  when 
we  were  all  caught  napping,  he  saved  the  franchise 
bill  from  becoming  a  law." 

The  governor,  looking  a  question  at  Mr.  Meredith, 
said: 

"Ah?" 

"Yes,"  answered  Mr.  Meredith,  and  then,  when 
the  governor  had  motioned  them  to  take  seats,  and 
Jamie  had  worked  and  wiggled  himself  away  back 


138  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

into  a  deep  leather  chair,  with  his  legs  and  feet  stick- 
ing straight  out  in  front  of  him,  Mr.  Meredith  told 
the  governor  the  whole  story.  When  he  had  done,  the 
governor  rose  and  went  over  to  where  Jamie  sat 
in  the  big  chair,  his  arms  stretched  along  the  chair's 
arms. 

Jamie  would  have  wriggled  out  of  the  chair,  but 
he  had  not  time  to  do  so.  And  then,  as  he  looked  up 
into  the  grave,  kind  face,  His  Excellency,  speaking 
very  seriously,  said : 

"My  boy,  you  have  done  the  people  of  Chicago 
and  the  people  of  Illinois  a  great  service — a  service 
you  will  understand  some  day — and  now,  on  their 
behalf,  I  wish  to  thank  you  for  it." 


MACOCHEE'S 
FIRST  CAMPAIGN  FUND 

SQUIRE  GODDARD  had  been  renominated  as 
mayor  of  Macochee  for  the  fifth  time,  and  for 
three  weeks  had  played  his  customary  checker 
games  with  the  firemen  in  the  town  hall,  serene  in 
the  conviction  that  he  could  not  fail  of  reelection. 
Then  suddenly  he  awakened  to  the  fact  that  he  had 
been  the  victim  of  a  gum- shoe  campaign.  Election 
was  but  a  week  off,  and  something  had  to  be  done. 
So  they  raised  a  campaign  fund.  Now,  Maco- 
chee, in  that  day,  had  never  had  a  campaign  fund. 
The  state  committee  never  put  any  money  into 
Gordon  County,  even  in  a  presidential  year.  The 
Republicans  didn't  have  to,  and  the  Democrats 
knew  better.  The  local  candidates,  of  course,  had 
little  expenses  of  their  own — for  cigars,  for  car- 
riages when  there  were  township  meetings  out  in 

139 


THE    GOLD    BRICK 

the  little  red  school-house,  for  printing  the  tickets 
(in  the  days  before  we  had  the  Australian  ballot), 
and  for  Ganson's  hack  to  use  at  the  polls  on  election 
day,  but  they  were  stingy  in  these  things.  Maco- 
chee  and  Gordon  County  always  went  right,  any- 
how. Joe  Boyle,  Captain  Bishop,  Major  Turner, 
old  Bill  Williams  and  John  Ernest  had  been  par- 
celing the  fat  offices  in  the  court-house  among 
themselves  ever  since  the  war,  and  all  a  county  con- 
vention ever  had  to  do  was  to  renominate  the  old 
ticket,  and  it  went  through  in  November  without  a 
scratch.  Sometimes,  because  of  curious  constitu- 
tional prejudices  against  a  county  treasurer  suc- 
ceeding himself,  they  had  to  run  Captain  Bishop 
for  county  clerk,  and  let  old  Bill  Williams  have  the 
treasury,  but  it  only  meant,  after  all,  changing  the 
combination  a  little,  and  beyond  the  trouble  of  mov- 
ing some  favorite  old  desk  chairs,  which  had 
molded  themselves  to  rheumatic  backs,  from  one 
side  of  the  court-house  to  the  other,  the  ring  re- 
mained undisturbed  in  that  ancient,  life-giving  pile. 
Of  course  they  had  to  find  a  new  candidate  for 
prosecuting  attorney  every  six  years,  but,  fortu- 
nately, the  crop  of  young  lawyers  is  one  that  never 


MACOCHEE'S    CAMPAIGN    FUND      141 

fails,  whatever  party  is  in  power  down  in  Wash- 
ington. 

And  so,  among  a  virgin  electorate,  the  advent  of 
a  campaign  fund  was  an  impressive  event.  The 
people  felt  that  they  had  entered  upon  a  new  era  in 
their  political  life,  just  as  they  did  when  the  council 
bought  the  new  fire  apparatus  and  began  to  agitate 
the  question  of  bonding  the  town  for  water-works 
— a  proposition,  by  the  way,  upon  which  the  leading 
citizens  sat  down  quickly  enough,  because  it  meant 
taxes — while  the  line  of  loafers  leaning  against  the 
court-house  fence  increased,  waiting  for  the  dis- 
tribution. They  had  vague  notions  about  a  cam- 
paign fund  in  Macochee.  The  amount  was  reputed 
to  be  five  hundred  dollars,  and,  technically,  it  was  in 
the  custody  of  the  court-house  ring,  but  as  they  had 
never  had  a  campaign  fund  to  disburse  before,  and 
could  not  decide  how  to  proceed,  it  was  temporarily 
locked  in  the  county  treasurer's  vault,  where,  not  be- 
ing interest  on  the  public  moneys,  it  was  compara- 
tively safe.  Meanwhile  they  were  sticking  closer  than 
brothers.  They  would  not  allow  one  of  their  num- 
ber out  of  their  sight.  They  went  to  their  meals  in 
relays,  and  held  night  sessions  in  the  treasury,  los- 


i42  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

ing  sleep  and  rest,  so  that  all  their  latent  diseases, 
rheumatics,  phthisis,  lumbago,  gravel,  and  so  on, 
were  aggravated.  They  became  cross,  jealous  and 
suspicious,  full  of  envy,  debate,  deceit,  malignity; 
whisperers,  back-biters,  despiteful,  proud,  boasters, 
inventors  of  evil  things.  They  swore  as  they  had 
not  sworn  since  the  battle  of  Port  Republic.  They 
cursed  each  other,  they  cursed  Horace  Goddard, 
and  when  these  subjects  failed,  they  cursed  young 
Halliday. 

Young  Halliday  was  at  the  bottom  of  all  the 
deviltry  in  Macochee.  He  had  not  been  out  of 
Harvard  a  month  before  all  the  good  people  in  the 
town  were  wagging  their  heads  sadly  and  saying: 
"Tsck!  Tsck!  Tsck!"  He  parted  his  hair  in  the 
middle.  He  brought  home  a  habit  of  dropping  his 
r's,  and  of  pronouncing  his  a's  with  a  broad  accent, 
as,  for  instance,  when  he  said  "rawther;"  he 
smoked  cigarettes,  puffed  a  heavy  brier  pipe,  wore 
red  neckties  and  knickerbockers,  and  he  drank  beer. 
And  he  did  something  else,  something  that  struck 
the  moral  fiber  of  the  town  on  the  raw.  He  changed 
his  politics  and  became  a  Democrat ! 

Being  a  Democrat  in  Macochee  is  like  being  a 


MACOCHEE'S    CAMPAIGN    FUND      143 

Republican  in  Alabama.  There  are  hardly  enough 
Democrats  in  Macochee — outside  of  the  fifth  ward, 
which  is  Irish — to  hold  primaries,  and  they  always 
have  mass  conventions  to  hide  their  political  naked- 
ness. Hank  Defrees,  the  only  Democratic  lawyer  in 
Macochee,  insisted  that  conventions  were  necessary 
in  order  to  keep  up  the  party  organization.  He  liked 
to  go  over  to  Columbus  every  two  years  as  delegate 
to  the  state  convention.  It  afforded  him  an  outing 
and  a  chance  at  the  whisky  in  the  Neil  House. 
Besides,  it  is  something  to  go  to  the  state  convention 
with  the  solid  vote  of  any  county,  even  Gordon,  in 
your  vest  pocket.  The  local  Democrats  humored 
Hank.  He  had  been  their  only  available  timber 
for  Common  Pleas  judge  and  prosecuting  attorney, 
and  he  had  been  sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  his  party 
times  enough,  surely,  to  entitle  him  to  whatever 
there  was  in  sight. 

But  George  Halliday  had  been  reared  a  Repub- 
lican. His  father  had  been  an  Abolitionist,  the 
friend  of  Salmon  P.  Chase,  and  his  home  had  been 
known  in  its  time  as  one  of  the  stations  of  the  under- 
ground railway.  He  had  voted  for  John  C.  Fre- 
mont, and  he  had  voted  a  straight  Republican  ticket 


144  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

ever  since.  George  had  responded  to  these  home 
influences  sympathetically,  and  had  given  early 
promise  of  that  vital  interest  in  politics  for  which 
Ohio  mothers  ardently  look  in  their  sons.  His  first 
experience  in  politics  was  in  1876,  when  he  took  an 
active  part  in  the  Hayes-Tilden  campaign,  crying 
after  the  little  Catholic  boys  from  the  parochial 
school,  on  his  homeward  way  at  evening: 

"Fried  rats  and  pickled  cats, 
Are  good  enough  for  Democrats." 

And  once  he  marched  with  a  party  of  his  play- 
mates in  a  torchlight  procession,  under  a  transpar- 
ency which  announced  exultantly: 

"Hurrah  for  Hayes !  He's  the  man ! 
If  we  can't  vote,  our  daddies  can !" 

That  was  a  fine  campaign,  extending  far  beyond 
autumn,  and  during  the  long  winter  evenings  he  had 
been  allowed  to  sit  up,  sometimes  until  after  nine 
o'clock,  to  hear  his  father  read  in  the  Cincinnati 
Gazette,  of  the  bloody  deeds  of  the  Ku-Klux  Klan. 
The  strange,  cabalistic  words  froze  the  very  blood 
in  his  veins.  At  night  he  would  hear  the  drumming 


MACOCHEE'S    CAMPAIGN    FUND      145 

of  horses'  hoofs,  and  see  white-sheeted  forms  gal- 
loping by  in  the  gloom.  Sometimes  they  halted  and 
looked  at  him  through  big  black  eyeholes. 

These  were  the  Ku-Klux,  and  he  was  afraid,  until 
the  evening  his  father  came  home  radiant,  sat  down 
to  the  supper  table  with  a  smile  that  gave  a  fine  cheer 
to  the  room  and  said : 

"Well,  we  got  Hayes  in." 

Later,  when  he  was  in  the  high  school,  he  became 
a  member  of  the  Elaine  and  Logan  marching  club, 
wore  a  red  oilcloth  cape  and  carried  a  torch.  As  he 
trudged  along  Macochee's  streets,  strangely  unfa- 
miliar in  the  darkness,  breathing  the  smoke  of  the 
flaring  torches,  intoxicated  by  the  tired  throbbing  of 
the  bass  drum,  he  would  shout  in  unison  with  the 
hoarse  voices  of  excited  men : 

"Elaine— Elaine, 
James — G. — Elaine !" 

Then  the  procession,  debouching  into  the  Square, 
was  swallowed  up  by  the  crowd;  nothing  remained 
of  it  but  extinguished  reeking  torches  scattered  here 
and  there  among  the  thousands  of  restless  heads. 
George  wriggled  his  way  up  to  the  festooned  band 


146  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

stand,  he  saw  the  pale  speakers  and  the  countless 
vice-presidents — his  father  was  one  of  the  vice- 
presidents — and  he  listened  to  the  inspiring  song  of 
the  Glee  Club : 

"Dinna  ye  hear  the  slogan, 
Jimmy  Elaine  and  Johnny  Logan? 
The  plumed  knight  and  warrior  bold 

Are  bound  to  gain  the  day. 
The  golden  gates  are  creaking 
While  the  Yankee  boys  are  speaking, 
And  the  Johnnies  are  retreating, 
For  we're  bound  to  gain  the  day." 

His  eyes  had  been  blurred  by  the  tears,  his  heart 
had  ached  with  the  secret  pain  of  patriotism.  He 
had  registered  sweet  vows ;  he  never  could  forget — 
and  yet,  now,  just  as  his  education  was  complete 
and  he  was  ready  to  enter  upon  his  career,  just  as 
the  new  sign  of  the  new  firm  of  Halliday  and  Halli- 
day,  attorneys-at-law,  was  swinging  at  the  foot  of 
the  stairs  in  the  People's  National  Bank  block,  he 
had  turned  Democrat.  It  was  a  sore  subject  at 
home.  He  and  his  father  no  longer  discussed  the 
tariff  question.  Mrs.  Halliday  said  it  made  her 
nervous,  as  it  might  anybody. 

That  winter  Halliday  did  nothing  more  serious 


MACOCHEE'S   CAMPAIGN    FUND      147 

than  to  attend  a  Catholic  fair  in  Father  Hennessey's 
church,  and  make  a  speech  awarding  the  prize  some 
one  had  won  in  the  raffle.  But  in  the  spring,  Hank 
Defrees,  loafing  around  among  the  boys,  told  them 
the  thing  to  do  was  to  nominate  George  for  mayor 
on  the  Democratic  ticket,  and  it  was  done.  When 
old  Horace  Goddard  heard  of  the  nomination,  he 
chuckled  until  his  great  belly  shook,  and  actually 
invited  Captain  Bishop  and  the  rest  of  the  boys,  who 
had  gathered  at  the  post-office  to  wait  for  the  seven 
o'clock  mail,  around  to  Cramer's  drug  store  to  have 
a  drink.  The  cronies  all  laughed  as  they  drank — 
though  they  said,  with  soberness,  that  they  felt  sorry 
for  old  Judge  Halliday  himself. 

It  was  a  cruel  thing  to  do,  and  it  was  young  Hal- 
liday's  idea  alone.  He  was  a  youth  with  aspirations, 
and  he  saw  in  the  nomination  something  more  than 
the  mere  compliment  Hank  Defrees  had  intended. 
Therefore  Squire  Goddard's  checker  game  was  in- 
terrupted by  a  black-coated  delegation  of  Protestant 
clergymen.  It  was  a  Monday  morning,  and  they 
must  have  come  straight  from  preachers'  meeting 
with  their  impudent  questions.  They  wanted  to 
know  whether  or  not  it  was  true  that  the  liquor  laws 


i48  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

had  not  been  enforced,  and  how  he  stood  on  the 
saloon  question  generally.  The  old  squire  puffed 
profusely  and  made  promises.  The  next  day  a 
committee  of  saloon-keepers  was  called.  The  old 
man  blew  out  his  varicose  cheeks  and  sputtered : 

"I've  ran  for  mayor  o'  this  'ere  town  now  goin'  on 
five  times,  and  I'm  dog  damned  if  I  ever  heerd  such 
a  lot  o'  fool  questions  before !" 

The  next  day  it  was  rumored  that  Father  Hen- 
nessey had  told  his  parishioners  that  Squire  God- 
dard  could  not  be  trusted.  Then  the  storm  broke. 
The  W.  C.  T.  U.  held  a  mass  meeting  and  issued  an 
appeal  to  save  the  boys.  That  night  husbands  were 
put  on  the  rack  of  domestic  inquisition.  They  had 
it  pointed  out  to  them  that  there  was  a  drunkard  in 
every  fifth  family — statistics  proved  it — and  parents 
didn't  want  their  boys  exposed  any  longer  to  such 
temptations.  No  one  knew  where  the  statistical 
lightning  was  going  to  strike. 

"Suppose  you  want  to  intrust  the  regulation  of 
the  rum  power  to  the  Democrats,  do  you  ?"  sneered 
the  husbands,  with  ironical  grunts,  thereby  moving 
the  previous  question  and  closing  the  debate.  Never- 
theless, after  that  the  mayor  was  kept  busy  explain- 


MACOCHEE'S    CAMPAIGN    FUND      149 

ing,  which  is  the  direst  necessity  that  can  befall  a 
candidate.  He  encountered  Halliday  in  the  Square 
one  day,  and  blazed  forth : 

"You're  gittin'  too  smart  'round  this  town  all  to 
onct,  young  feller.  You  know  more'n  your  pap 
a' ready,  an'  if  he  can't  1'arn  ye  no  respec'  fer  yer 
elders,  I  will."  He  shook  a  palsied  fist  at  the  youth, 
as  he  added,  in  a  tone  almost  pitiable:  "An'  I'll 
tell  him  jest  what  you  done,  too." 

Defeat  might  have  killed  the  old  man,  and  the 
campaign  was  beginning  to  tell  on  him.  But  when 
they  raised  the  fund,  it  was  as  a  hot  and  sweetened 
toddy  to  warm  the  cockles  of  his  heart.  While  he 
had  no  adequate  concept  of  it,  and  while  the  manner 
of  its  working  was  a  mystery  to  him,  he  did  not 
doubt  its  efficacy.  He  felt  safe.  Also,  as  the  sub- 
ject of  the  only  campaign  fund  Gordon  County 
had  ever  known,  he  felt  a  supreme  importance, 
which  swelled  out  his  chest  and  filled  him  with  a  ripe 
content.  He  even  found  himself  taking  the  opposi- 
tion with  some  zest,  now  that  it  was  certain  to  be 
non-effective.  Three  days  more,  thought  the  squire, 
and  it  would  be  all  over.  He  imagined  some  sort  of 
civic  triumph  for  himself.  He  dreamed  of  a  ser- 


1 50  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

enade  by  the  Macochee  Silver  Cornet  Band,  in  the 
evening,  under  the  shade  of  the  pine  trees  about  his 
home.  He  dramatized  himself  as  bowing  and  smil- 
ing on  the  front  porch.  He  would  go  out  just  as 
he  was,  in  his  shirt-sleeves  and  slippers,  his  silver- 
bowed  spectacles  on  his  nose,  and  the  Cincinnati 
paper  in  his  hand.  It  would  be  thus  more  spon- 
taneous, more  democratic.  Mandy  would  stand 
behind  him,  holding  the  lamp  high.  The  front  picket 
fence  would  be  black  with  people.  He  wondered  if 
there  would  be  enough  of  the  campaign  fund  left  to 
provide  the  cake  she  must  offer  the  band  boys,  and 
whether  a  part  of  its  office  was  to  meet  such  con- 
tingencies. So  the  old  squire  sat  in  his  old  chair, 
the  split  bottom  of  which  had  been  worn  shiny  years 
ago,  and  smoked  his  old  pipe,  with  sharp,  dry  puffs 
of  contentment. 

The  squire  looked  forward  to  disbursing  the  fund 
himself,  but  the  court-house  ring  still  clung  to  it  in 
indecision.  Friday  morning,  when  they  met,  elec- 
tion \vas  but  three  days  off,  and  the  ring  agreed  that 
they  must  get  down  to  business.  Major  Turner 
said,  with  profound  wisdom,  that  money  could  be 
used  to  best  advantage  in  the  saloons.  Charley  Bas- 


MACOCHEE'S    CAMPAIGN   FUND      151 

sett — he  was  prosecuting  attorney  then — asked, 
with  a  lawyer's  passion  for  fine  distinctions,  in  what 
sense  the  major  employed  the  word  "used."  Before 
the  major  could  reply — he  had  knit  his  brows  and 
was  whittling  a  fresh  chew  from  his  plug,  to  irrigate 
his  thought — old  Bill  Williams  said : 

"No,  that  won't  do ;  we  must  use  it  to  get  out  the 
vote." 

"Well,"  said  Bassett,  who  always  annoyed  the 
old  fellows  with  his  young  haggling,  "how'll  you 
get  out  the  vote  ?" 

The  auditor,  with  an  effort  at  something  definite, 
said: 

"Why,  we  must  have  organization — that's  what 
wins  in  elections  these  days."  He  shook  his  head,  in 
a  keen  triumph,  for  the  phrase  pleased  him,  as 
phrases  do  please  politicians.  He  began  to  conceive 
himself — gladly,  as  a  great  political  leader,  as  an 
organizer  of  victory.  "Organization,  that's  the 
word,"  he  persisted,  and  then,  growing  bolder,  he 
brought  his  fist  down  on  his  fat  knee,  and  plunged 
on  heedlessly  into  detail. 

"You  just  give  me  that  fund,"  he  said,  "and  I'll 
— I'll  show  you,"  he  brought  up  lamely. 


152  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Well,  tell  us  how  you'd  spend  it,"  insisted  Bas- 
sett.  "What'd  you  buy  first  ?  Remember,  election's 
only  next  Tuesday." 

"Why,  why,"  hesitated  Williams,  "I'd  spend  it 
gittin'  out  the  vote.  I'd  git  kerriages,  and  have 
signs  painted  to  hang  on  the  horses,  readin',"  and  he 
lined  the  imaginary  letters  on  the  rough  palm  of  his 
left  hand  with  the  gnarled  forefinger  of  his  right, 
"  'Republican  City  Committee — Vote  for  God- 
dard.'" 

The  old  squire,  tickled  with  the  sound  of  the  last 
legend,  broke  in  with : 

"You've  got  the  idee,  Billy." 

"Course,"  said  Williams,  expanding  more  and 
more,  "I  seen  'em  that  way  when  I  was  in  Columbus 
onct,  on  'lection  day.  Get  about  five  good  two-horse 
kerriages — " 

But  the  captious  Bassett,  remembering  that  old 
Bill's  son-in-law,  Hi  Wellman,  kept  the  livery  stable, 
interrupted  him  by  saying : 

"Oh,  that  wouldn't  cost  more'n  twenty  dollars, 
and,  anyway,  we  can  use  our  own  buggies,  same  as 
we've  always  done." 

Captain  Bishop,  who  had  been  carefully  combing 


MACOCHEE'S    CAMPAIGN    FUND      153 

his  whiskers  with  his  fingers,  then  advanced  his 
scheme. 

"Seems  to  me,"  he  said,  "that  we'd  ought  to  have 
a  campaign  committee,  with  a  treasur'  and  a  finance 
committee,  and  let  the  treasur'  pay  out  only  on  war- 
rants drawed  by  the  finance  committee — then 
there'd  be  no  question." 

"No,  there'd  be  no  question,"  said  Bassett  cyn- 
ically, "there'd  be  no  question.  And  the  finance 
committee  could  draw  warrants  for  their  own  ar- 
rest, while  they're  about  it." 

The  ring  gasped,  and  though  the  captain  tried  to 
say  something  about  business  methods,  they  were  all 
silent  for  a  long  time,  chewing  their  tobacco  gravely 
and  thoughtfully,  until  the  squire  nervously  ven- 
tured to  ask : 

"But  what  do  you  think  we'd  best  spend  it  fer?" 

"Votes,"  said  Bassett  laconically. 

"That's  surely  what  we  want,"  said  Judge  Ernest, 
speaking  for  the  first  time.  The  old  men  in  the 
circle  wheeled  toward  the  probate  judge.  They  had 
not  been  surprised  at  what  Bassett  said,  for  he  never 
attended  service,  and  was  reputed  to  be  a  free- 
thinker, but  Judge  Ernest  was  a  pillar  in  the  church. 


154  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Why,  John,"  said  Major  Turner,  "you  don't 
mean  to  say  you'd  buy  votes?" 

"Didn't  say  I  would,  did  I  ?"  snapped  the  old  man, 
wriggling  uneasily  in  his  Delaware  chair.  "I  meant 
that  the  money  ought  to  be  used  so  as  to  produce 
votes." 

"Exactly,"  assented  Bassett. 

"And  if  it  don't  do  that,"  the  judge  went  on, 
"why  we'd  ought  to  give  it  back  to  them  as  contrib- 
uted." The  judge  offered  this  solution  with  a  new 
hope  dawning  in  his  heart,  for  he  had  mourned  over 
the  ten  dollars  he  had  invested  in  the  fund.  A  mur- 
mur of  approval  ran  around  the  ring,  and  the  old 
squire,  fearing  the  dissolution  of  the  fund,  was  the 
only  one  in  the  room  whose  face  did  not  glow. 

"I'll  tell  you,  boys,"  said  Joe  Bogle,  "we  might 
whack  her  up  among  the  crowd  and  everybody  do 
the  best  they  can  with  their  share." 

"That's  what  I  call  a  grand  su'gestion,"  said 
Judge  Ernest,  shaking  his  head  approvingly. 

But  Bassett  shook  his  head  the  other  way.  "No," 
he  said,  "that  won't  do,  we  want  some  system  in  this 
thing.  It  ought  to  be  changed  into  dollar  bills  and 
then  given  to  the  central  committeemen  to  use  in 


MACOCHEE'S    CAMPAIGN    FUND      155 

their  wards  election  day.  Of  course  we  won't  need 
so  much  in  the  strong  Republican  wards — we'll  put 
it  out  in  Lighttown  and  down  in  Gooseville  among 
the  niggers,  and  some  of  it  across  the  tracks  among 
the  boys  in  the  shops — that's  where  it'll  tell." 

But  the  ring  stubbornly  opposed  the  idea  of 
letting  that  pile  of  money  go  out  of  its  hands.  They 
put  only  young  men  on  the  city  committee,  and  the 
honor  and  importance  were  enough  for  them.  They 
would  be  wanting  office  next. 

The  old  squire  voiced  the  protest. 

"  'Pears  to  me,"  he  whined,  "that  as  I'm  runnin', 
I'd  ought  to  have  a  leetle  of  it  fer  my  own  expenses 
on  'lection  day.  I've  been  givin'  of  my  services  to 
the  party  now  fer  nigh  on  to  twenty  year,  not 
countin'  my  term  in  the  army,  and  it's  expensive, 
'specially  with  that  young  Halliday  carryin'  on  the 
way  he  is — " 

"No  one  never  made  up  a  fund  for  none  of  us, 
Hod  Goddard,"  chorused  the  old  fellows. 

"Yes,  and  there's  others  on  the  ticket  besides 
you,"  interrupted  Bassett.  "Let  each  candidate 
spend  his  own  money  if  he  wants  to.  You  hain't 
paid  your  assessment  yet,  anyhow." 


156  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"But  I'm  the  head  o'  the  ticket,"  stammered  the 
squire,  his  red  face  deepening  to  purple. 

The  booming  of  the  town  clock  in  the  court-house 
tower  startled  the  ring,  and  the  county  officials 
glanced  at  their  big  silver  watches.  They  were  al- 
ready half  an  hour  late  for  their  dinners. 

"And  my  wife  told  me  to  fetch  home  some  meat," 
said  Bassett,  forgetting  all  else  as  he  seized  his  hat. 

And  so  the  conference  broke  up.  Saturday  night 
came,  they  had  no  solution,  and,  like  those  that  do 
business  in  great  waters,  were  at  their  wits'  end. 

Sunday  morning  a  report  spread  through  the 
town  that  caused  the  ring  to  take  heart  of  grace.  It 
was  a  report  of  serious  defections  in  Halliday's 
ranks.  Jerry  Sullivan,  Scotty  Gordon,  old  man 
Garwood,  Rice  Murrell  and  even  Hank  Def  rees  had 
been  going  about  town  all  Saturday  afternoon  and 
evening,  and  everywhere  they  went  they  told  people 
it  was  no  use — Halliday  couldn't  be  elected.  He 
might  have  been  two  weeks  ago,  if  he  had  acted  dif- 
ferently, but  now — they  shook  their  heads.  They 
couldn't  stand  for  him  any  more — he  needn't  look 
to  them  for  support — he  hadn't  treated  them  right 
— they  had  been  fools  to  expect  anything  from  such 


MACOCHEE'S    CAMPAIGN    FUND      157 

a  dude.  Five  hundred  dollars,  they  said,  judiciously 
used,  would  settle  his  hash.  They  wished  they  had 
the  management  of  it,  they  would  revenge  them- 
selves for  his  slights  and  insults.  And  these  were 
representative  men,  even  if  their  portraits  had  not 
been  made  in  half-tone  for  the  History  of  Gordon 
County. 

Jerry  Sullivan  lived  on  the  hill  behind  the 
priest's  house,  and  was  the  "darlint"  of  all  the  old 
women  in  Lighttown.  He  was  a  lad  of  power  in  the 
Fifth  Ward.  Scotty  Gordon  lived  across  the  tracks 
in  the  Second  Ward  and  worked  in  the  shops.  Old 
man  Garwood  lived  just  at  the  edge  of  town,  on  the 
Blue  Jacket  road,  in  the  Fourth  Ward,  and  Rice 
Murrell,  the  Reverend  Rice  Murrell,  the  pastor  of 
the  A.  M.  E.  church — who  had  turned  Democrat 
when  they  took  the  janitorship  of  the  court-house 
away  from  him — could  do  more  with  the  colored 
voters  down  in  Gooseville  than  any  man,  save  Judge 
Halliday,  and  he  was  out  of  politics.  Hank  Def  rees, 
of  course,  who  still  shivered  under  the  fringe  of  a 
ragged  garment  of  respectability  by  clinging  to  a 
heavily  mortgaged  home  far  out  on  Scioto  Street, 
where  the  better  element  of  the  town  began  to  thin 


158  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

out  into  social  mediocrity,  stood  for  the  aristocratic 
Third  Ward,  with  its  normal  Republican  majority 
of  two  hundred  and  eleven.  The  Democrats  had 
never  been  able  to  make  up  a  ward  delegation  in  the 
Third,  and  Defrees  for  years  and  years  had  sat  in  all 
city  and  county  conventions  very  much  at  large. 

Such  a  defection,  on  the  eve  of  election,  was 
serious,  as  every  one  recognized.  Just  after  dinner, 
on  Sunday,  Judge  Halliday,  who  had  disclaimed  all 
interest  in  the  campaign,  beckoned  his  son  into  the 
parlor,  darkened  for  secrets,  and  said  to  him  in  a 
whisper  that  Mrs.  Halliday  plainly  heard  over  the 
banister  of  the  staircase  in  the  hall : 

"Did  you  know  that  Hank  Defrees  and  that  Sul- 
livan boy  and  Gordon  and  old  man  Garwood,  and 
even  Rice  Murrell,  are  around  working  against 
you?" 

George  gasped  with  surprise. 

"And  did  you  know,"  the  father  whispered  on, 
"that  the  Republicans  have  raised  a  corruption  fund 
— five  hundred  dollars,  I  understand?" 

"Yes,  I  heard  that,"  said  George,  "must  be  getting 
desperate,  you  fellows,  eh?" 

"Now,  my  son,"  said  the  judge,  with  brows  low- 


MACOCHEE'S    CAMPAIGN    FUND      159 

ered,  "you  know  I  would  have  absolutely  nothing 
to  do  with  such  a  business  as  that.  You  know  my 
opinions  on  such  things  too  well." 

"Oh,  of  course,  father,"  said  the  boy,  "that's  all 
right.  I  know  you  wouldn't  countenance  it — " 

"And  I  was  just  going  to  say,"  the  elder  man  con- 
tinued, "that  while  I  do  not  agree  with  you,  and 
while  I  would  not  vote  for  you — at  least,  I  do  not 
think  I  would — I  was  just  going  to  say  that  if  you 
need  any  money  yourself,  to  meet  any  of  the — ah — 
legitimate  expenses  of  your  campaign,  why,  just  call 
on  me." 

The  boy  grasped  his  father's  hand,  and  when  he 
could  speak,  he  said : 

"Thank  you,  father,  thank  you,  but  not  now — it 
isn't  worth  it — but  I'll  see  what's  the  matter  with 
these  Indians,  anyway." 

George  went  to  his  offices,  over  the  People's  Na- 
tional Bank  and  waited  an  hour  in  the  rear  room,  a 
dark  and  dingy  room,  with  the  dust  of  a  country  law 
office  deep  on  everything,  and  one  ray  of  sunlight 
scrambling  in  through  the  heavy  shutters  from  the 
alley.  Then  one  after  another,  up  the  worn  and 
splintered  stairs  with  tin  signs  of  insurance  agents 


160  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

and  notaries  public  on  every  step,  five  men  clam- 
bered. They  were  grinning  when  they  entered  the 
room,  grinning  and  standing  about  awkwardly,  all 
save  Hank  De frees,  who  was  solemn  and  impon- 
derable, chewing  his  tobacco  as  gravely  as  if  he  were 
making  an  appearance  in  court. 

"Well,"  said  George,  standing  in  the  middle  of 
the  floor,  "anything  happened  ?" 

The  men  all  looked  at  one  another,  hesitating  to 
speak,  but  finally  Scotty  Gordon  said : 

"Happened !    Well,  I  guess  yes." 

"What?"  queried  George. 

"Well,"  he  began,  "now  I  done  it,  and  last  night 
old  Bill  Williams  hunted  me  up  in  Jake  Fogarty's 
saloon,  and,  well,  he  offered  me  fifty  dollars  to  use 
if  I  wanted  it." 

"Say,"  Jerry  Sullivan  broke  in — "Captain  Bishop 
offered  me  seventy-five." 

"And  didn't  you  take  it?" 

"Why,  no,"  said  Jerry. 

"What  did  you  tell  him?" 

The  lad's  eyes  twinkled. 

"I  told  him,"  he  answered  slowly,  "that  it 
wouldn't  be  a  drop  in  the  bucket." 


MACOCHEE'S    CAMPAIGN    FUND      161 

"Good  for  you,"  said  George.  "And  now,  Mr. 
Garwood  ?" 

"Well,"  said  the  old  man,  "don't  know  as  I  got 
much  to  say.  Major  Turner,  though,  'as  'round  to 
my  house  this  morning,  an' —  Well,  he  offered  me 
fifty  dollars  if  I  felt  the  way  I  had  been  reported, 
and  thought  I  could  use  it." 

"Judge,"  said  George,  turning  to  Defrees,  "it's 
up  to  you." 

The  old  lawyer  took  his  tobacco  in  his  fist  and 
chucked  it  away.  "Joe  Bogle,"  he  said,  "told  me  he 
knew  where  there's  a  hundred  for  me  if  I  could  do 
any  good  with  it." 

"And,  doctor,"  said  Halliday,  facing  around  to 
the  Reverend  Mr.  Murrell,  who  stood  solemn  in  his 
black  garments  and  white  tie,  "what  happened  to 
you?" 

The  old  negro  glanced  all  around  him  cautiously 
and  even  craned  his  neck  to  peer  into  the  room  be- 
yond. 

"Well,  suh,"  he  began,  "Judge  Ernest  'as  out  this 
mornin'  to  hyah  me  preach,  an'  aftah  service  was 
ovah,  he  drawed  me  to  one  side,  and  'gin  to  talk  poli- 
tics. He  ast  me  how  I  felt  towa'ds  you  all,  Mistuh 


1 62  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

Halliday,  an' — Ah  didn'  like  to  say  it — but  you 
done  tol'  me,  'membah." 

"That's  right,"  said  George,  urging  the  parson 
out  of  his  hesitation,  "you  made  it  strong,  I  hope." 

"Wellum,  Ah  tol'  the  judge  that  Ah  wasn'  pow- 
'ful  strong  on  you  any  moah,  sense,  Ah  said,  you  all 
hadn't  felt  'sposed  to  help  us  'ith  the  subscription 
fo'  the  new  roof  on  ouah  chu'ch." 

"That  was  clever,"  said  George,  "damned  clever 
— I  beg  your  pardon."  The  old  negro's  eyes  had 
widened  till  their  whites  showed,  and  he  had  raised 
his  hands,  holding  up  his  yellow  palms  before 
George.  "But  go  on." 

"Well,  suh,  the  jedge  'as  al'ays  had  an  interest  in 
ouah  spiritual  welfare,  an'  so  he  'lowed  we'd  ought 
to  be  holpen  out  some."  The  old  man  paused  and 
swallowed  ceremoniously.  "An'  so,  gen'lemen,  he 
offered  me  a  hundred  an'  fifty  dollahs." 

The  dark  eyes  of  the  old  man  shone  with  a 
strange  new  luster. 

"What  did  you  say?" 

"Well,  suh,"  the  preacher  hesitated,  "Ah  took  it." 

George  brought  his  hand  down  on  the  parson's 


MACOCHEE'S    CAMPAIGN    FUND      163 

shoulder  with  a  heavy  slap  and  he  laughed.  "Good, 
Bishop,  good." 

They  counted  the  money  out  on  the  table — ex- 
actly four  hundred  and  ninety  dollars,  the  first  cam- 
paign fund  Macochee  had  ever  known.  Then  they 
laughed  and  laughed  and  laughed. 

When  Halliday  had  laid  his  plans  for  the  mor- 
row's battle  before  his  companions,  he  leaned  back 
in  his  chair  and  said,  turning  to  the  Reverend  Rice 
Murrell : 

"I  don't  suppose,  Bishop,  that  you  approve  of  the 
use  of  money  in  politics,  do  you?" 

"No,  suh"  the  old  preacher  replied,  with  a  smart 
gravity,  "an'  somepin'  done  tol'  me,  yist'day,  when 
the  jedge  come  to  see  me,  that  it  'as  jus'  providential 
that  this  much  o'  that  filthy  lucah  'as  removed 
from  corruptin'  ouah  'lections  by  bein'  placed  in 
mah  han's."  His  rolling  eyes  bulged  and  he  dribbled 
at  the  mouth  as  he  fingered  the  pile  of  bills. 

"Well,"  said  George,  "don't  put  too  big  a  roof  on 
the  church,  and  remember — Gooseville's  going  to 
vote  to-morrow." 

"Oh,    nevah   you    feah    'bout    Goose ville,    mah 


164  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

brothah — she'll  be  votin'  early  an'  of'en  to-morrah, 
an'  she'll  vote  right." 

George  Halliday  was  mayor  of  Macochee  but  one 
term.  That  is  a  trick  that  has  been  played  once  in 
every  town  in  this  free  republic — but  it  can  never 
be  played  twice. 


A  SECRET  OF  STATE 

OVER  at  the  executive  mansion,  Governor 
Chatham  and  his  private  secretary  were  at 
dinner  when  the  telegram  came.  The  governor  took 
the  yellow  envelope  from  the  butler's  tray  and  tore 
it  open.  When  he  had  read  the  message  he  passed  it 
over  without  a  word  to  Gilman.  The  private  sec- 
retary's eyes  widened  as  he  read  it,  and  he  ex- 
claimed : 

"Jim  Lockhart  dead!" 

William,  the  black  butler,  stirred  uneasily.  The 
governor  bent  forward,  and  lifted  his  coffee  to  his 
lips.  Gilman  laid  the  despatch  beside  his  plate,  and, 
still  looking  at  it,  began  to  pinch  the  golden  tip  of 
a  cigarette.  William  slid  noiselessly  to  his  side  with 
a  match.  When  Gilman  had  lighted  his  cigarette 
he  said : 

"Poor  Jim!" 

165 


1 66  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

The  governor  responded : 

"Yes,  poor  Jim." 

A  strange  quality  in  the  governor's  tone  gave  ex- 
pression to  something  more  than  sadness.  His  face 
was  somber,  immobile,  inscrutable.  He  dropped  his 
napkin,  and,  without  lighting  his  cigar,  though  Wil- 
liam stood  by,  shading  the  little  flame  of  the  ready 
match  with  his  pale  palm,  he  rose  and  went  slowly 
into  the  library.  About  the  walls  were  his  beloved 
books.  On  the  broad,  heavy  table  of  Flemish  oak  a 
shaded  lamp  rose  over  the  magazines,  the  pamphlets, 
the  scattered  books  and  the  Chicago  newspapers, 
which  reach  Springfield  at  noon.  In  the  wide 
chimney — over  which  is  carved  those  words  from 
the  Benedicte,  "Oh,  ye  Fire  and  Heat,  Bless  ye  the 
Lord" — a  brazier  of  Sangamon  County  coal  was 
blazing.  Outside  a  cold  November  rain  was  driving 
against  the  tall  windows  of  the  mansion.  The  gov- 
ernor sank  into  a  deep  leather  chair.  He  supported 
his  head  in  his  hand  and  gazed  into  the  fire. 

Gilman  followed,  and  seating  himself,  likewise 
fell  into  a  melancholy  reverie.  The  silence  within, 
and  the  wind  sweeping  the  rain  back  and  forth  like 
a  broom  without,  oppressed  him.  He  was  a  young 


A    SECRET    OF    STATE  167 

man.  Once  or  twice  he  looked  at  the  governor,  and 
then  the  silence,  the  wind  and  the  rain  forced  him 
to  speak. 

"He  seemed  to  be  in  perfect  health  when  he  went 
away  Wednesday,"  he  said. 

The  silence  deepened.  The  wind  threshed  the 
trees  and  the  rain  drenched  the  windows  anew.  Oil- 
man spoke  again.  He  said : 

"The  party's  lost  a  good  man." 

"And  I  have  lost  another  friend,"  said  the  gov- 
ernor. He  was  growing  old. 

Without  moving,  still  gazing  deeply  into  the  coals, 
after  a  little  minute,  he  added : 

"He  was  the  most  generous  man  I  ever  knew." 

"Yes ;  and  I  believe,  after  all,  when  the  time  came, 
he  would  have  been  with  you  for  the  renomination." 
The  governor  stretched  out  his  hand  to  stay  Gil- 
man's  speech. 

"I  was  not  thinking  of  that,  Leonard." 

The  governor  did  this  gently,  as  he  did  all  things. 
Oilman's  face  reddened — for  the  fire  was  growing 
hot — and  silence  fell  again  between  them.  Oilman 
felt  the  silence.  He  flung  his  cigarette  into  the  fire. 
Then  he  rose. 


1 68  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Guess  I'll  go  over  to  the  Leland,"  he  said.  "Some 
of  the  boys  may  have  particulars." 

The  governor  nodded  acquiescence,  but  as  Gilman 
reached  the  door  that  leads  into  the  northwest  draw- 
ing-room, he  spoke: 

"Before  you  go  hand  me  the  statutes,  if  you 
please.  I  suppose  I  have  some  duty  to  perform  in 
an  event  like  this." 

Gilman  who  longed  only  for  action,  bore  with 
alacrity  the  three  big  calf-skin  volumes  to  the  li- 
brary table,  and  turned  to  the  index. 

"I'll  find  the  section  for  you."  Gilman  examined 
the  second  volume  for  an  instant,  and  then  said: 
"Here  it  is." 

"Read  it,  please,"  said  the  governor. 

And  Gilman  read :  "  'Section  sixteen.  In  case  of 
the  death  of  the  treasurer,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the 
governor  to  take  possession  of  the  office  of  such 
treasurer,  and  cause  the  vaults  thereof  to  be  closed 
and  securely  locked,  and  so  remain  until  a  successor 
is  appointed  and  qualified ;  and  at  the  time  such  suc- 
cessor takes  possession  of  the  office,  he,  together 
with  the  auditor  of  public  accounts  and  any  of  the 
bondmen  of  the  deceased  treasurer  who  shall  be 


A    SECRET    OF    STATE  169 

present,  shall  proceed  to  take  an  account  of  all 
moneys,  papers,  books,  records  and  other  property 
coming  into  his  possession;  and  the  auditor  shall 
take  of  such  succeeding  treasurer  his  receipt  there- 
for and  keep  the  same  on  file  in  his  office.'  There," 
concluded  Gilman,  closing  the  book,  and  then  im- 
mediately reopening  it,  "that's  it — it's  chapter  one 
hundred  and  thirty,  section  sixteen  of  the  act  of 
eighteen  seventy-three,  page  twenty-three  twenty- 
seven." 

"Now  turn,"  said  the  governor,  "to  the  chapter 
on  elections,  chapter  forty-six,  I  think  it  is,  and  see 
what  it  says  about  the  appointment  of  a  successor." 

Gilman  tilted  up  the  first  volume,  and  inspected 
the  red  and  black  labels  on  its  back;  then  he  turned 
to  chapter  forty-six,  and,  running  his  finger  down 
the  pages  until  he  found  the  section,  read  hurriedly, 
mumbling  his  words  until  he  came  to  the  vital  sen- 
tence : 

'  'When  a  vacancy  shall  occur  in  the  office  of  sec- 
retary of  state,  auditor  of  public  accounts,'  yes,  here 
it  is"  (he  accentuated  the  word)  "'treasurer,  attor- 
ney-general, superintendent  of  public  instruction' ' 
(he  was  reading  rapidly  now  and  running  words 


1 70  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

together)  "  'or  member  of  the  state  board  of  equal- 
ization, the  governor'  "  (and  now  he  raised  his  voice 
and  read  more  slowly  and  distinctly)  "  'the  governor 
shall  fill  the  same  by  appointment,  and  the  appointee 
shall  hold  his  office  during  the  remainder  of  the 
term,  and  until  his  successor  is  elected  and  qualified.' 
That's  section  hundred  and  twenty-eight." 

"Well,"  said  the  governor,  "I'll  name  Hillman  to 
fill  the  vacancy."  Hillman  was  the  treasurer-elect, 
chosen  by  the  people  in  November  to  succeed  Lock- 
hart.  He  was  not  of  the  party,  however,  to  which 
the  governor  belonged.  In  Illinois,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, treasurers  are  elected  not  quadrennially,  as 
are  the  other  state  officials,  but  biennially,  and  a 
treasurer  can  not  succeed  himself.  So  that  in  the 
middle  of  an  administration  there  is  always  an  off 
year,  and  a  reaction,  and  as  the  papers  say,  a  sting- 
ing rebuke  at  the  polls. 

"M-m-yes,"  said  Oilman,  "the  boys  won't  like  it 
— but  it's  only  for  a  couple  of  months." 

"And  as  to  sealing  the  treasury,"  continued  the 
governor,  "I  presume  that  the  morning  will  be  time 
enough  for  that." 

"Yes,    it's   a   bad   night    outside,    anyway,"    re- 


A    SECRET    OF    STATE  171 

sponded  Oilman.  The  governor  was  lost  again  in 
thought.  Gilman  went  on  and  out. 

The  governor,  alone  in  the  library,  continued  to 
gaze  into  the  fire.  Once  he  took  from  the  table  at 
his  elbow  a  worn  book,  which  he  handled  tenderly. 
He  read  in  it  for  a  while.  It  was  The  Thoughts  of 
Marcus  Aurelius.  But  he  did  not  read  long.  Pres- 
ently he  was  sitting  with  the  forefinger  of  one  hand 
between  the  leaves  of  the  book,  which  lay  in  his  lap, 
musing  on  the  fire  again.  Outside  the  rain  drenched 
the  tall  windows  of  the  mansion. 

The  clock  in  the  hall  tolled  eleven.  The  governor 
rose,  and  went  slowly  up  the  staircase  that  winds 
gracefully  from  the  great  hall  to  the  floor  above,  and 
thence  to  his  chamber  and  his  bed. 

In  a  room  on  the  parlor  floor  of  the  Leland,  the 
windows  of  which  looked  down  on  Sixth  street,  a 
short,  fat  man  was  pacing  the  floor.  His  unbuttoned 
waistcoat  showed  a  white  shirt  stretched  over  a  large 
paunch.  His  hair  was  greased  with  perspiration,  big 
drops  of  which  stood  out  on  his  forehead,  and  slid 
down  his  pendulous,  dewlapt  cheeks.  He  had  a 
bristling  mustache,  at  which  he  gnawed  when  he  re- 


172  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

moved  his  cigar  from  his  lips,  and  a  short  goatee  at 
which  he  plucked  incessantly  with  his  fingers.  When 
his  cigar  was  in  his  mouth,  he  rolled  it  about  and 
ground  it  between  his  teeth.  At  times  he  spat  pieces 
of  the  tobacco  leaves  fiercely  into  the  grate.  The 
cigar  was  burning  unevenly,  and  fuming  so  that  the 
little  man  winked  his  little  eyes.  On  a  table  in  the 
room,  littered  with  the  inevitable  Chicago  papers, 
and  strewn  with  poker  chips,  stood  an  empty  whisky 
glass.  The  rumpled  counterpane  of  the  bed  showed 
that  the  little  man  had  been  tossing  upon  it.  As  he 
paced  up  and  down  he  talked  to  himself,  and  at  times 
swore. 

"Hell,"  he  would  say,  "why  the  devil  doesn't  he 
come !" 

Occasionally  he  would  draw  out  his  watch,  and 
scowl  at  its  face.  Then  he  would  look  at  the  old- 
fashioned  brass  crank  on  the  wall,  beside  the  door, 
which  sometimes  pulled  a  call-bell  in  the  office  below, 
and  sometimes  did  not,  but  he  did  not  ring  it.  He 
ran  his  fingers  through  his  tumbled  hair,  and  paced 
up  and  down. 

The  little  man  was  William  Grigsby,  and  he  was 
the  attorney-general  of  the  state  of  Illinois.  He  had 


A    SECRET    OF    STATE  173 

come  down  from  the  Jo  Daviess  hills,  to  serve  a 
term  in  the  house,  and  been  nominated  for  the  office 
he  now  held  by  the  governor,  John  Chatham.  John 
Chatham  was  his  political  creator,  and  the  two  men 
had  once  been  friends.  The  administration  had  be- 
gun harmoniously  enough,  but  before  two  of  the 
four  years  of  its  political  life  had  expired  there  was 
a  split,  and  factions  had  formed.  There  had  been  a 
fierce  fight  for  the  control  of  the  state  central  com- 
mittee that  year,  and  the  struggle  had  been  carried 
into  the  state  convention,  which  nominated  a  state 
treasurer,  a  superintendent  of  public  instruction,  and 
trustees  of  the  university  of  Illinois.  In  one  faction 
were  the  governor,  the  auditor  of  public  accounts, 
and,  of  course,  his  appointees,  the  adjutant-general, 
the  railroad  and  warehouse  commissioners  and  the 
trustees  of  the  state  institutions.  In  the  other  were 
the  attorney-general  and  the  secretary  of  state,  Jen- 
nings. Lockhart,  the  state  treasurer,  had  been  neu- 
tral. He  was  everybody's  friend.  The  lieutenant- 
governor  did  not  count.  The  superintendent  of  pub- 
lic instruction  was  not  a  politician,  save  in  teachers' 
institutes,  where  he  was  cheered  and  indorsed  in 
classic  resolutions. 


174  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

And  now  Grigsby  was  an  avowed  candidate  for 
governor,  in  opposition  to  his  old  friend,  John  Chat- 
ham, the  man  who  had  made  him.  Two  years  bring 
about  great  changes  in  politics.  Grigsby,  in  that 
time,  had  grown  corpulent,  had  hardened  his  liver 
and  his  heart,  and  was  threatened  with  Bright's  dis- 
ease. 

The  attorney-general  continued  to  smoke  and  pace 
the  floor,  and  swear.  After  a  while  he  consulted 
his  watch  again,  and  then  gave  the  old-fashioned 
brass  bell-pull  a  vigorous  jerk.  Presently  a  negro 
boy  came  bearing  a  presumptive  pitcher  of  water, 
the  tinkling  of  the  ice  heralding  his  approach.  The 
attorney-general  would  have  welcomed  iced  water 
in  the  morning,  but  now  he  seized  it  from  the  black 
boy's  hand,  set  it  down  with  a  splash  on  his  wash- 
stand,  and  shouted : 

"Go  and  tell  Jim  to  mix  me  a  commodore." 

Just  as  the  boy  reached  the  door,  it  opened,  and  a 
tall  man  entered.  The  tall  man  seeing  the  boy, 
looked  at  Grigsby. 

"What'll  you  have,  Hank?"  said  the  attorney-gen- 
eral. 

"A  little  whisky." 


A    SECRET   OF    STATE  175 

"Bring  Mr.  Jennings  some  whisky,"  ordered  the 
attorney-general. 

"Bourbon,  boy,"  added  Mr.  Jennings. 

The  boy  withdrew. 

The  attorney-general  paused  before  the  fire,  and 
looked  up  into  the  face  of  the  secretary  of  state. 

"Well,  Hank,"  he  said,  "I  began  to  fear  you 
hadn't  got  my  message.  Heard  the  news  ?" 

The  secretary  of  state  lazily  pulled  off  his  wet 
overcoat  and  flung  it  across  the  bed,  and  then,  shak- 
ing the  water  from  his  broad-brimmed  black  slouch 
hat  in  the  careless  way  they  have  down  in  southern 
Illinois,  he  tossed  it  after  the  coat,  on  which  it  fell 
with  a  damp  slap.  He  stood  six  feet  in  height,  and 
would  have  been  taller  had  he  not  stooped.  His  face 
was  long,  his  skin  dingy  and  sallow,  and  his  thin 
nose,  beginning  between  deep-set  eyes  of  steely  blue, 
stretched  down  the  middle  of  his  visage,  and  precip- 
itated itself  over  the  black  mustache  that  drooped 
thin  and  moist  about  his  mouth.  His  hair,  glossy 
black,  though  he  was  fifty,  was  flung  straight  across 
his  brow  and  over  his  left  ear,  giving  the  effect  of  a 
mane.  Behind,  it  greased  the  collar  of  a  long  black 
frock  coat  that  wrapped  him  lankly.  A  narrow  black 


1 76  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

tie  hung  unknotted  at  his  throat.  When  he  moved 
it  was  in  that  loose  and  lazy  way  that  told,  as  his 
hat  and  his  habit  did,  that  he  came  from  the  country 
south  of  the  old  O.  and  M.,  which  divides  Egypt 
from  the  corn  lands  of  central  Illinois.  He  drew  a 
rocking-chair  to  the  grate,  and  stretching  himself 
comfortably  in  it,  with  his  feet  upon  the  ash-strewn 
fender,  drew  from  his  hip  pocket  a  plug  of  tobacco 
and  gnawed  on  it.  Then  he  drawled,  in  a  voice 
haunted  by  musical  echoes  of  southern  ancestry : 

"What  news?" 

"Why,"  replied  the  attorney-general,  "haven't 
you  heard  ?  Jim  Lockhart's  dead." 

"The  hell  he  is !"  responded  Jennings.  "I  hadn't 
heerd  ary  word.  When'd  he  die  ?" 

"This  afternoon." 

"Sudden?" 

"Rather." 

"What  was  ailin'  of  him?" 

The  attorney-general  smiled,  a  peculiar,  mirthless 
smile. 

The  secretary  of  state  ceased  to  rock. 

"You  don't  reckon  now — " 

"That's  it  exactly." 


A    SECRET    OF    STATE  177 

"I  didn't  know  it'd  got  that  bad.  What'd  they 
give  out  f er  the  cause  ?" 

"Oh,  heart  failure,  I  suppose." 

"Beats  hell,  don't  it?" 

The  secretary  of  state  was  silent.  Presently  he 
spoke  again  in  an  abstracted  way : 

"Well,  Jim  'as  a  devil  of  a  good  feller,  as  good  as 
you'd  meet  up  'ith  in  a  coon's  age.  An'  I  reckon 
when  it  come  to  a  show-down,  he  'as  our  friend.  If 
the  boys  'p'ints  an  investigatin'  committee — Jim  'as 
al'ays  a  leetle  too  free  'ith  the  stuff." 

Grigsby  said  "Yes,"  in  a  detached  tone.  Then 
there  was  silence  for  a  space.  The  bell-boy  knocked, 
bore  in  his  tray  and  departed.  The  men  nodded  over 
the  edges  of  their  little  glasses  each  to  the  other,  and 
drank.  Then  Grigsby,  wiping  his  lips,  said : 

"Hank,  I  didn't  send  for  you  to-night  to  hold 
memorial  services  over  Jim  Lockhart.  There's  some- 
thing more  important  than  that — there's  something 
damned  important,  and  it  concerns  me." 

"You?" 

"Yes,  me.  I'm  in  this  thing  just  twenty  thousand 
dollars." 

"The  hell  you  are!" 


178  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Just — twenty — thousand — dollars." 

Grigsby  sank  into  a  chair. 

"Borrowed?"  asked  Jennings. 

"Yes." 

"Public  funds?" 

"Well— I  don't  know.    Course—" 

"Jim  Lockhart  didn't  have  no  private  fortune — 
'ithout  it  'as  the  int'rust." 

"Well,  suppose  it  was." 

"An'thin'  to  show  fer  it?" 

"I  gave  him  three  notes — one  for  ten,  two  for  five 
thousand  each." 

"Well,  you're  a  bigger  damn  fool  than  I  gave  you 
credit  fer  bein'." 

The  attorney-general,  clutching  his  fingers  into 
his  hair,  rested  his  elbows  on  his  short  knees,  and 
bowed  his  head.  "And  with  the  governorship  just 
in  plain  sight,  too,"  he  groaned. 

"Well,  it  wasn't  so  damn  plain,"  said  Jennings. 

Then  as  his  eye  rested  on  the  man  bowed  beside 
him,  the  sweat  trickling  down  his  tallow  face,  some- 
thing in  the  droop  of  the  figure  touched  a  chord  of 
pity  in  his  heart,  and  the  tall  Egyptian  laid  a  hand  on 
Grigsby's  shoulder,  saying  in  another  tone : 


A   SECRET   OF   STATE  179 

"Don't  take  on  that  way.  Let's  see  what  can  be 
done." 

"Yes,  let's,"  assented  Grigsby. 

The  Egyptian  knitted  the  brows  over  his  long, 
narrow  nose. 

"Hev  you  got  any  money?"  he  asked. 

"I !"  exclaimed  Grigsby,  with  a  sardonic  grunt. 

"Any  property?" 

"Only  my  house  up  home." 

"Hain't  you  any  friends  up  there,  any  bankers 
that'll  take  care  o'  this  thing  fer  you?" 

Grigsby  laughed  ironically. 

"Cain't  you  lay  down  on  somebody  fer  it?" 

Grigsby  shook  his  head. 

"How's  your  quo  'arranto  proceedin's  'gainst  the 
Chicago  Consolidated?" 

"It  isn't  ripe  yet,"  said  Grigsby,  "and,  anyhow, 
there  isn't  time.  Damn  it,  man,"  he  said,  raising  his 
voice,  and  striking  his  knee  with  his  fist,  "it's  got  to 
be  done  now,  to-night,  or  I'm  lost.  The  governor, 
under  the  law,  must  seal  the  treasury  at  once,  and 
you  know  just  how  long  John  Chatham'll  wait. 
We've  got  to  take  care  of  this  thing  to-night,  to- 
night, I  tell  you.  That's  why  I  sent  for  you."  The 


i8o  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

attorney-general  spoke  angrily,  and  with  a  puffed 
face  that  flushed  an  unhealthy  red,  and  then  added, 
stretching  forth  his  hand  and  laying  it  on  Jennings' 
knee,  "You're  my  friend,  ain't  you?" 

"Sure,"  said  the  secretary  of  state  carelessly,  and 
then  knitted  his  brows  again.  After  a  few  minutes 
he  said : 

"Say,  Bill,  you  and  the  governor  used  to  be 
friends,  and  he  hain't  a  bad  feller,  no-way.  He  got 
you  your  nomination,  you  know — why  don't  you  go 
to  him—" 

"Go  to  the  governor?"  cried  Grigsby;  "and  tell 
him — tell  him!" 

"Bill,"  said  the  secretary  of  state,  "you  don't 
know  the  governor.  He  hain't  my  kind,  ner  I  his'n, 
but  I'll  tell  you  one  thing — he  hain't  the  man  to  take 
advantage  of  a  feller.  You'd  be  as  safe  in  his  hands 
as  you  would  in  mine — safer,  maybe,"  Jennings  con- 
cluded, with  a  good-humored  chuckle. 

Grigsby  emphatically,  doggedly,  shook  his  head. 

"It  never  would  do  in  this  world,"  he  said, 
"never." 

"Why,  you  could  get  him  to  hold  off  till  you  could 
take  care  of  it.  You  and  him  used  to  be  such  friends 


A   SECRET   OF   STATE  181 

— tell  him  you'll  lay  down  fer  the  sake  of  old  times 
— that's  the  thing — tell  him  an'thin'  to  get  him  to 
hold  off  fer  a  few  days.  Then  you'll  have  time  to 
turn  'round." 

"Look  here,  Jennings,"  said  Grigsby,  straighten- 
ing up  and  glaring  at  the  secretary  of  state,  "Chat- 
ham's got  all  you  fellows  hypnotized.  You  think 
he's  a  little  tin  god,  that  he's  incapable  of  doing  a 
mean  act,  of  throwing  a  friend  down,  or  anything 
of  that  sort.  I  tell  you  I  know  him  better  than  all 
of  you  do.  He  and  I  used  to  be  close,  thicker'n — " 

"You  wasn't  borrowin'  money  out  o'  the  state 
treasury  them  days,  though,  was  you,  Bill?"  inter- 
rupted Jennings. 

Grigsby  colored. 

"No,  you  was  somethin'  of  a  reformer  yourself." 

Grigsby  colored  more  deeply. 

"An*  as  fer  the  throwin'  down — we  know  who 
done  the  heft  o'  that.  Course  I  don't  care — it  suits 
me — but  give  a  houn'  his  dues." 

Grigsby's  color  had  changed  by  swift  gradations 
of  tone  to  splenetic  blackness.  He  broke  in  upon 
Jennings'  indictment  of  him,  and  his  defense  of  the 
governor : 


182  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Oh,  drop  that — let's  talk  business.  I  tell  you  I 
know  Chatham,  and  I  ain't  goin'  to  put  myself  in  his 
hands." 

He  drew  out  his  watch  and  opened  it. 

"It's  half -past  eight  now,  and  he  doubtless  knows 
Lockhart's  dead — probably  he's  got  the  treasury 
sealed." 

Jennings'  brow  was  gathered  once  more  in 
wrinkles  that  indicated  thought.  His  face  rapidly 
assumed  an  expression  of  determination.  Presently 
he  rose. 

"Bill,"  he  said,  "I'm  goin'  to  do  somethin'  fer  you 
I  wouldn't  do  fer  any  other  livin'  man." 

Grigsby  raised  an  appealing,  yearning  face. 

"Yest'day  I  deposited  in  Gregory's  bank  over  at 
Decatur  twenty- four  thousand  dollars.  It's  the  fees 
received  in  my  office  durin'  the  last  quarter.  It's 
lucky  fer  you  they  was  unusually  large — " 

"Yes,"  said  Grigsby,  and  his  expression,  expectant 
and  hopeful  a  moment  before,  clouded,  "but  it's  in 
Decatur,  and  we're  in  Springfield  and  we've  got  to 
have  it  now,  to-night,  if  it's  goin'  to  do  us  any  good. 
What  the  devil  did  you  want  to  deposit  it  in  Greg- 
ory's bank  for?" 


A    SECRET    OF    STATE  183 

"Because,"  replied  Jennings,  "Gregory's  rich,  and 
a  contributor,  an'  he  can  deliver  Macon  County,  and 
we'll  want  Macon  County's  ten  votes,  if  I  hain't  mis- 
taken, one  of  these  days.  But  never  mind  that  now 
— it's  the  on'y  thing  we  can  do." 

Jennings  looked  at  his  watch.  "It's  now  twenty- 
five  till  nine.  A  train  goes  out  on  the  Wabash  at 
nine-five.  I'll  send  Hennessey  over  on  that  train 
with  a  note  to  Gregory,  an'  a  check.  He  can  get 
twenty  thousand,  an'  ketch  a  train  back  'bout  eleven- 
twenty,  I  think,  anyway — that  train  that  gets  here  at 
twelve-forty.  You  can  take  the  money,  put  it  back 
in  the  treasury,  'fore  the  governor  seals  'er  up, 
an'—" 

Grigsby  sprang  toward  Jennings  and  seized  his 
hand. 

"Hank,  you're  the  best  friend  I  ever  had,"  he 
cried,  and  his  eyes  glistened. 

"Aw,  don't  talk  like  that,"  said  Jennings  awk- 
wardly. 

"But  can  we  trust  Hennessey?"  said  Grigsby,  the 
next  instant,  his  eyes  dilating,  his  hand  suddenly 
dropping  by  his  side. 

"Hell,  we've  got  to,"  said  Jennings.     Then  he 


1 84  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

strode  across  the  room  and  turned  the  old-fashioned 
brass  bell-pull. 

When  a  black  boy  grinned  in  the  doorway,  Jen- 
nings sent  for  Hennessey,  and  soon,  the  old  elevator 
having  clambered  to  the  parlor  floor,  there  was  a 
knock.  Jennings  yelled  "Come!"  and  in  the  door- 
way stood  a  young  Irishman,  red-cheeked  and  with 
closely-cropped,  silver-sprinkled  black  hair.  In  the 
cities,  the  hair  of  the  Irish-American — especially  in 
politics,  and  they  are  all  in — turns  gray  early.  Hen- 
nessey was  strong  in  the  Thirteenth  Ward  of  Chi- 
cago, hence  his  job  in  the  office  of  the  secretary  of 
state.  Jennings  had  been  writing  while  awaiting 
the  Irishman's  coming.  Turning  to  him  the  secre- 
tary of  state  gave  his  instructions,  and  he  departed. 
As  he  closed  the  door  Grigsby  called : 
"I'll  make  it  all  right  with  you,  Mike." 
Grigsby  went  to  the  window  and  pressed  his  face 
to  one  of  the  small  panes,  placing  his  hands  as  blinds 
beside  his  eyes  as  a  little  child  does.  The  cold  glass 
soothed  his  forehead  deliciously.  He  saw  Shorty, 
who  has  driven  "statesmen"  on  their  mysterious 
nightly  rounds  for  generations,  mount  the  box  of  his 
old  hack  and  pull  his  reluctant  horses  into  the  street. 


A    SECRET    OF    STATE  185 

Then  he  turned  to  confront  the  three  hours'  wait. 
He  poked  the  smouldering  fire  of  soft  prairie  coal, 
gave  Jennings  a  cigar,  and  was  about  to  pull  the  old- 
fashioned  brass  bell  crank  that  more  cheer  might  be 
added  to  the  factitious  comfort  he  sought  to  create 
in  the  room,  when  Jennings,  meditatively  scratching 
his  head,  said : 

"Bill,  where's  them  notes  o'  yourn  ?" 

"Why,  in  the  treasury,  I  suppose." 

"Well,  you'll  have  to  get  some  one  who  can  open 
the  vaults  fer  you  to-night." 

Grigsby's  brow  darkened,  and  the  small  cheerful- 
ness that  had  begun  to  adumbrate  itself  in  his  face 
faded  quite  away. 

"That's  so— I  hadn't  thought  of  that." 

He  pondered  heavily  and  then  said,  the  old  note 
of  fear  in  his  tone : 

"Has  that  vault  a  time  lock?" 

"I  reckon." 

They  were  silent. 

"Well,"  said  Grigsby  presently,  breaking  the  si- 
lence, "I'll  have  to  get  Mendenhall."  Mendenhall 
was  the  assistant  state  treasurer,  and  was  counted 
among  the  adherents  of  Grigsby. 


1 86  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Better  let  me  go,"  said  Jennings,  taking  up  his 
coat  and  hat. 

When  he  had  gone  Grigsby  again  paced  the  floor. 
Now  he  would  pause  at  the  window  and  look  down 
into  Sixth  Street,  where  the  rain,  falling  hopelessly 
and  helplessly,  was  making  pools  in  the  depressions 
of  the  cedar  block  pavement  that  glinted  in  the  white 
glare  of  the  arc  light  spluttering  before  the  hotel. 
Whenever  the  hoarse  sounds  of  distant  locomotive 
whistles  came  to  him  out  of  the  wet  night,  he  jerked 
forth  his  watch  and  sighed  as  he  replaced  it.  Then 
he  began  to  worry  because  Jennings  did  not  reap- 
pear. He  wondered  if  Governor  Chatham  would 
venture  out  in  such  a  night  to  seal  the  treasury.  He 
cursed  Chatham,  who  had  made  him,  and  finally 
Jennings,  who  had  saved  him.  Altogether,  he  passed 
a  very  bad  two  hours.  And  then  Jennings  returned. 
As  the  tall  Egyptian  entered  the  room,  Grigsby  de- 
manded : 

"Where  you  been?" 

"Over  to  the  St.  Nick — met  up  'ith  some  o'  the 
boys,  an'  set  into  a  little  game  fer  a  while." 

"SeeMendenhall?" 

"Yep — he'll  be  'long.    Gosh !  it's  a  regular  Shaw- 


A    SECRET    OF    STATE  187 

neetown  flood  outside!"  And  the  man  waved  his 
big  hat  in  a  wide  arc,  the  spray  from  it  spitting 
angrily  as  it  sprinkled  the  fire  in  the  grate. 

"So  it's  all  right,  is  it?" 

"Ump  huh." 

"How  about  the  time  lock?" 

"Oh,  George  says  they  don't  never  use  that — 
haven't  sence  the  day  the  senate  'p'inted  that  com- 
mittee to  count  the  money  in  the  treasury.  'Member? 
By  gosh,  didn't  pore  ol'  Jim  hustle  to  get  a  special 
train  an'  haul  that  money  down  from  Chicago, 
though?" 

The  secretary  of  state  wagged  his  long  head  and 
chuckled. 

"That  thing  lost  him  e'enamost  fifty  thousan'  in 
int'rust,  he  tol'  me  onct,"  the  secretary  of  state  went 
on,  "an'  he  hain't  never  been  able  sinct  to  make  ary 
long  loan." 

Again  he  laughed,  and,  the  spirit  of  reminiscence 
being  upon  him,  he  went  on:  "One  time  'fore  the 
war,  the  legislature  'p'inted  a  countin'  committee, 
an'  ol' — oh,  what's  'is  name? — you  know — from 
Gallatin  County — he  'as  treasur'  then,  an'  the'  wasn' 
more'n  about  fifty  thousan'  in  the  safe,  but  he  'as 


1 88  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

game,  an'  when  the  committee  'peared  next  mornin', 
he  says,  'Cert'n'y,  gentlemen/  an'  handed  'em  out 
about  ten  thousan'  in  them  old  green  dollar  bills,  an' 
says:  'When  yo're  done  countin'  o'  them  'ere,  I'll 
give  you  all  some  more.'  An'  in  'bout  an  hour  they 
reckoned  they'd  take  his  figur's — they'd  have  to  do." 

Grigsby's  heart  lightened,  and  he  became  almost 
gay,  ordering  much  drink.  And  for  an  hour  the  two 
men  sat  there,  waiting  and  smoking,  and  drinking 
whisky — Jennings  bourbon  and  Grigsby  rye — and 
were  content.  Though  every  time  the  yowl  of  a 
locomotive  was  borne  to  him  on  the  cold,  wet  night, 
Grigsby  jerked  out  his  watch.  And  once  he  started 
at  a  short  knock  on  the  door,  but  it  was  only  Men- 
denhall. 

After  midnight  Grigsby's  anxiety  deepened,  and 
he  ceased  to  pay  attention  to  Jennings'  stories  of 
politics  down  in  "southern  Eellinoy,"  stories  about 
Don  Morrison  and  John  A.  Logan.  At  twelve- forty 
he  rose  and  trod  the  floor,  but  Jennings'  long  form 
was  stretched  out  before  the  fire,  his  whisky  glass 
was  at  his  elbow,  and  he  said  from  time  to  time : 

"Oh,  fer  God's  sake,  Bill,  set  down— they'll  be 
'long  all  right." 


A    SECRET    OF    STATE  189 

"Isn't  that  the  Wabash?"  said  Grigsby,  cocking 
his  head  at  the  night  cry  of  a  locomotive. 

"I  don'  know,"  said  Jennings,  who  was  growing 
mellow,  "on'y  whistles  I  could  ever  tell  was  them  on 
the  ol'  O.  and  M.,  'ceptin'  o'  course,  the  toot  of  the 
Three  States,  which  is  now  at  Cairo,  ef  she  hain't 
stuck  on  a  mud  bank  over  on  the  Mizzouri  shore 
some'er's  'round  Bird's  Landin'." 

Grigsby  looked  at  his  watch.  It  was  ten  minutes 
of  one,  and  just  as  he  dolefully  announced  the  hour 
the  door  opened,  and  Hennessey  entered,  carrying  a 
leather  traveling-bag.  Grigsby  leaped  toward  him, 
his  itching  fingers  outstretched  to  seize  the  valise. 

"Is  it  all  there  ?"  he  exclaimed. 

"Take  me  for  a  thief  ?"  replied  Hennessey,  swing- 
ing the  bag  behind  him. 

Hennessey  proffered  the  bag  to  his  master,  but 
Jennings  said : 

"Wait  a  minute."  Then  he  ran  his  hand  wrist- 
deep  into  his  pocket  and  drew  out  a  paper,  which  he 
examined  critically,  squinting  his  eyes,  partly  to  pro- 
tect them  from  the  smoke  that  curled  up  from  a  big 
domestic  cigar,  partly — as  it  seemed,  to  assist  in  the 
concentration  of  his  thoughts. 


i9o  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Gineral,"  he  said — by  some  strange  confusion  of 
ideas,  down  in  Springfield  they  give  the  attorney- 
general  a  military  title,  which  custom  that  function- 
ary fosters — "Gineral,  will  you  give  me  your  signa- 
ture to  that,  'fore  you  start?" 

Grigsby  glowered  at  Jennings,  read  the  paper, 
said  somewhat  petulantly,  "Oh,  of  course,"  and  hesi- 
tatingly signed  it. 

"Now,  Hennessey,"  said  Jennings,  carefully  plac- 
ing the  paper  in  a  long  pocket-book  he  drew  from  the 
region  of  his  left  hip. 

Hennessey  held  the  bag  out  toward  the  secretary 
of  state. 

"No,"  said  Jennings,  who  was  pouring  himself  a 
drink,  "give  it  to  the  gineral." 

The  attorney-general  took  the  bag  and  opened  it. 
Inside  were  four  big  bundles  of  bank  bills.  He  lifted 
them  out.  Each  bundle  was  composed  of  ten  smaller 
packages,  held  by  rubber  bands,  and  each  package 
was  bound  with  a  pink  paper  strap  neatly  pinned  and 
marked  "five  hundred."  He  counted  and  replaced  the 
packages  in  the  bag.  Then  taking  his  coat  and  hat,  he 
turned  to  Jennings  and  said : 

"Well,  let's  be  gone." 


A    SECRET    OF    STATE  191 

The  secretary  of  state  rolled  his  head  toward  the 
attorney-general,  waved  his  long  arm  and  flapped 
his  hand  fin-like  at  him,  and  said : 

"We'll  wait  here,  Mike  and  me.  You  won't  need 
us." 

The  attorney-general  scowled,  and  then  went  out, 
accompanied  only  by  the  assistant  state  treasurer. 
Hurrying  down  Capitol  Avenue,  Grigsby  shivered, 
glancing  up  dark  alleys. 

The  clock  in  the  hall  of  the  executive  mansion  had 
struck  the  half -hour  after  midnight,  and  the  gov- 
ernor was  descending  the  stairs  in  a  gray  bath-robe 
and  slippers.  The  old  house  was  dark  and  still. 
Even  the  room  occupied  by  Gilman,  who  should,  at 
that  hour,  have  been  reading  the  magazines  in  bed, 
showed  no  light.  The  governor,  softly  treading, 
entered  the  library.  The  last  embers  of  the  fire  were 
smouldering.  The  governor  lighted  the  lamp,  and 
in  the  circle  of  soft  light  it  spread  on  the  library 
table,  he  bent  over  a  book,  his  glasses  on  his  nose, 
their  cord  hanging  down  into  his  lap.  He  turned  the 
leaves  of  the  book.  It  was  not  The  Thoughts  of 
Marcus  Aurelius.  It  was  the  second  volume  of 


192  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

The  Revised  Statutes  of  Illinois,  a  stupid  work 
which  many  men  consult,  laboriously,  far  into  the 
night.  He  softly  rustled  over  the  leaves  until  he 
found  chapter  one  hundred  and  thirty.  He  ran  his 
finger  down  the  pages  till  it  stopped  at  section  six- 
teen. And  then  he  read  very  slowly:  "In  case  of 
the  death  of  the  treasurer,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the 
governor  to  take  possession  of  the  office  of  such 
treasurer  and  cause  the  vaults  thereof  to  be  closed 
and  securely  locked,  and  so  remain  until —  "  He  read 
the  words  again,  and  again  a  third  time,  and  yet 
again. 

He  closed  the  book,  put  out  the  lamp  and  slowly 
felt  his  way  back  up  the  stairs. 

Ten  minutes  later  he  descended  again,  and  grop- 
ing in  the  hall,  drew  a  greatcoat  over  his  broad 
shoulders,  covered  his  head  with  the  slouch  hat  he 
wore  when  he  went  down  into  southern  Illinois,  and 
let  himself  out  of  the  wide  front  door.  The  asphalt 
driveway  that  flings  its  long  curve  through  the 
grounds  of  the  gubernatorial  residence  from  Fifth 
Street  to  Fourth,  gleamed  like  the  surface  of  a  river 
at  night.  The  rain  no  longer  fell,  but  the  trees 
dripped  dismally.  Across  the  low  night  sky  black 


A    SECRET   OF    STATE  193 

clouds  were  flying.  The  governor  walked  down  the 
driveway  to  the  big  iron  gates  at  Fourth  Street, 
whose  watered  surface  as  far  as  he  could  see, 
wavered  under  the  electric  lights  at  the  crossings. 
The  governor  turned  at  Jackson  Street  and  walked 
down  the  sleeping  little  avenue  toward  Second 
Street.  Before  a  low  brown  house  trickling  its  eaves 
behind  two  sentinel  cedars,  he  halted.  He  went  up 
the  moist  brick  walk,  and  pulled  the  white  bell-knob. 
The  bell  jangled  harshly  upon  the  sleeping  stillness. 
The  jangling  trembled  away.  He  rang  again.  There 
was  a  reluctant  stir  within  and  a  voice,  a  scared 
woman's  voice,  said : 

"Who's  there?" 

"The  governor,"  he  responded.  "Is  Mr.  Menden- 
hallathome?" 

The  woman  slid  back  bolts  and  opened  the  door 
circumspectly.  She  thrust  out  a  towsled  head  and 
shoulders  wrapped  in  a  shawl.  The  governor  heard 
a  baby's  cry.  The  woman's  teeth  chattered  with 
nervousness  and  the  cold. 

"No,  sir;  he  hasn't  got  in  yet." 

The  governor  thanked  her  and  turned  away.  The 
woman  opened  the  door  wide  and  watched  him  as  he 


i94  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

retreated  down  the  moist  brick  walk.  At  the  street 
he  paused.  Then  he  turned  on  toward  Second  Street. 
The  woman  closed  the  door,  and  her  key  grated  in 
the  lock. 

The  governor  strode  on  into  Second  Street,  past 
the  residence  of  the  Bishop  of  Springfield,  standing 
behind  white  pillars  deep  in  its  naked  grove,  past  St. 
Agatha's  Seminary  sleeping  in  its  gloom,  until  he 
reached  the  state  house.  The  brooding  building 
loomed  above  him,  dark  and  dour,  heaving  its  great 
gray  dome  into  the  grim  night.  Huge  granite  pillars 
lifted  themselves  above  him,  he  was  lost  in  the 
shades  of  the  lofty  portico.  He  unlocked  and  pushed 
open  the  heavy  door.  The  great  marble  corridors 
were  dark  and  echoed  to  the  touch  of  his  heel  upon 
the  stones.  In  the  wide  rotunda,  under  the  enormous 
dome,  thick  with  billowing  gloom,  a  janitor,  the 
people's  solitary  night  watch,  slept  profoundly  in  his 
chair,  his  mouth  open,  his  white  beard  upon  his 
breast.  His  gossips  had  departed.  Their  deserted 
chairs  stood  aimlessly  about.  He  had  finished  the 
nightly  recital  of  the  strenuous  part  he  had  borne  in 
the  great  rebellion,  and  he  slumbered,  his  snores 
echoing  in  the  monstrous  inverted  bowl  above  him. 


A    SECRET   OF    STATE  195 

The  governor  ascended  to  the  floor  above,  and 
turned  down  the  north  corridor.  A  golden  bar  of 
light  was  thrown  across  the  marble  floor.  It 
streamed  from  the  open  door  of  the  state  treasury. 
The  governor  quickened  his  steps.  He  heard  the 
lunge  of  huge  bolts  as  they  were  tumbled  home.  He 
heard  the  dull  spin  of  a  combination  lock,  and  as  he 
reached  the  treasury  two  men  were  emerging  from 
the  dark  vaults. 

"Thank  God,  that's—" 

The  sentence  was  lost  in  the  mouth  of  the  attor- 
ney-general of  the  state  of  Illinois,  who  stood  with 
dropping  jaw  staring  at  the  governor.  The  attorney- 
general  stood  motionless,  and  then  plunged  a  hand 
with  three  pieces  of  paper  into  an  outer  pocket  of  his 
overcoat.  Mendenhall  stood  behind  him,  a  flame 
flashing  over  his  face. 

The  governor  was  the  first  one  to  speak. 

"Good  evening,  gentlemen,"  he  said. 

The  two  men  did  not  reply,  and  the  governor 
spoke  again, 

"Under  the  law,  gentlemen,"  he  said,  "the  duty 
devolves  upon  me  of  closing  and  locking  the  treasury 
and  temporarily  assuming  possession  of  it." 


196  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

Still  the  men  did  not  reply.  The  tissues  of 
Grigsby's  face  had  become  flaccid,  and  a  greenish 
shade  had  overspread  them.  His  eyes  had  contracted 
to  sharp  points  under  angry  brows.  The  governor 
scrutinized  the  two  men  closely,  as  he  advanced,  and 
said,  speaking  in  a  calm  tone : 

"And  so,  if  you  gentlemen  have  concluded  your 
business" — he  paused — "I  shall  proceed  to  the  exe- 
cution of  that  duty." 

"I  am,"  he  added,  a  moment  afterward,  "perhaps 
fortunate  in  finding  you  here,  Mr.  Mendenhall.  You 
may  be  able  to  assist  me." 

He  drew  toward  them,  and  they  stood  aside.  He 
entered  the  vaults  where  a  gas-jet  glimmered,  its 
light  glinting  on  the  nickel-plated  knobs  of  the  great 
steel  doors.  He  tried  the  doors.  They  were  locked. 
He  remained  an  instant  in  thought,  and  then  took 
from  his  pocket  a  stick  of  red  sealing-wax.  He  hesi- 
tated another  instant. 

"No,"  he  said,  "the  great  seal  could  not  be 
utilized." 

The  great  seal  of  state  of  the  state  of  Illinois, 
though  it  has  a  political  history,  is,  nevertheless, 
physically,  but  a  huge  overgrown  seal  such  as  no- 


A    SECRET    OF    STATE  197 

taries  public  use  in  their  little  businesses.  And  in  Illi- 
nois the  governor  has  no  privy  seal  as  he  has  in  some 
commonwealths.  The  governor  warmed  the  sealing- 
wax  in  the  gas-jet  that  blazed  beside  him  in  the  vault. 
When  it  began  to  melt  he  dribbled  and  daubed  its 
softened  substance,  drop  by  drop,  on  the  combina- 
tion of  the  huge  safe,  as  a  girl  would  seal  a  letter. 
When  he  had  quite  covered  the  lock  with  the  molten 
wax,  he  sealed  it  with  the  seal  ring  he  wore  on  his 
left  hand,  a  ring  which  bore  the  coat-of-arms  of  a 
colonial  governor.  The  midnight  secret  of  those 
two  men,  whatever  it  might  be,  was  either  safe  with 
them  or  more  safely  still,  sealed  with  other  secrets 
behind  those  massive  doors.  And  then  he  turned 
the  gas  down  until  only  a  tiny  star  blinked  in  the 
vault,  and  came  out,  and  swung  together  the  big 
steel  gates  that  clanked  like  prison  bars,  their  locks 
snapping  automatically. 

He  returned  to  the  outer  door  of  the  department 
and  placed  his  hand  upon  the  knob. 

"Gentlemen,"  he  said  ceremoniously,  "I  await 
your  pleasure." 

He  bent  his  gaze  full  upon  William  Grigsby,  and 
that  little  man,  throwing  back  his  head  with  some- 


198  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

thing  like  defiance,  strode  on  his  short  legs  out  of  the 
high-ceiled  room,  and  Mendenhall  followed  him,  but 
meekly.  As  they  filed  past,  Grigsby,  with  face  up- 
turned, a  face  that  now  in  anger  had  taken  on  the 
blue  tinge  of  butchered  beef,  drew  his  hands  from  his 
overcoat  pocket  and  clasped  them  behind  his  back. 
The  governor  bowed  as  the  little  man  and  Menden- 
hall swept  out  before  him.  And  then  he  drew  the 
big  walnut  door  to. 

Standing  out  in  the  corridor  Grigsby  waited,  and 
as  he  stood  and  waited,  he  fumbled  in  the  outer 
pocket  of  his  overcoat.  Suddenly  he  drew  forth  his 
hand.  His  face  had  turned  white,  the  white  of  a 
fish's  belly. 

As  the  governor  drew  the  big  walnut  door  to,  and 
as  it  swung  behind  him,  it  pushed  before  it,  scraping 
with  the  peevish  voice  of  a  ratchet  along  the  matted 
floor,  a  piece  of  crumpled  paper.  Grigsby,  who  had 
turned  toward  Mendenhall  with  a  look  of  death's 
despair,  saw  it,  and  started,  a  faint  ray  of  hope 
beaming  in  his  eye.  But  the  paper  lay  under  the  gov- 
ernor's feet. 

The  governor  closed  the  doors. 

"You  may  lock  them,  Mr.  Mendenhall,"  he  said. 


A    SECRET    OF    STATE  199 

The  assistant  state  treasurer  drew  a  jingling 
bunch  of  keys  from  his  pocket  and  locked  the  door. 
Grigsby's  eyes  were  fastened  on  the  paper  at  the 
governor's  feet.  His  heart  was  swelling  in  his 
throat.  His  fingers  were  twitching,  and  he  was 
sweating  like  a  stoker.  At  Mendenhall's  approach 
the  governor  placed  his  foot  upon  the  paper.  When 
Mendenhall  had  done,  the  governor  picked  it  up.  He 
smoothed  it  out  in  his  fingers,  and  slowly  adjusted 
his  glasses.  By  the  dim  light  that  always  burns  at 
night  just  outside  the  door  of  the  state  treasury  he 
read  it.  Then  he  placed  it  in  the  pocket  of  his  over- 
coat. He  kept  his  hand  upon  it.  The  blue  of 
Grigsby's  face  deepened. 

The  three  men  went  down  the  stairs,  the  governor 
standing  aside  at  the  top  to  let  them  precede  him. 
They  crossed  the  rotunda,  past  the  slumbering  jan- 
itor whose  snores  ascended  and  exploded  in  the 
rounded  blackness  of  the  hollow  dome,  down  the 
east  corridor  and  so  out  into  the  darkness.  They 
walked  together  down  the  wide  stone  walk,  the  stone 
walk  as  wide  as  a  street,  that  sweeps,  with  a  strip  of 
sward  down  its  middle,  across  the  state  house  lawns 
to  Capitol  Avenue.  The  governor  did  not  turn  up 


200  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

Second  Street  by  the  way  he  had  come.  He  kept  on 
with  his  two  companions,  and  all  three  were  silent. 
Not  a  word  had  any  one  of  them  spoken.  They  were 
drowned  in  thought.  It  matters  not  of  what  the 
assistant  state  treasurer  was  thinking.  He  held  only 
an  appointive  office.  He  was  a  political  villain,  and 
had  a  collar  on  his  neck.  The  attorney-general  was 
thinking  of  days  that  were  to  come.  The  governor 
was  thinking  of  days  that  were  gone.  Silent, 
thoughtful,  thus  they  kept  on  up  Capitol  Avenue. 
When  they  approached  the  shades  that  gathered 
under  the  ugly  iron  bridge  which  spans  the  ragged 
street  that  leads  to  the  capitol  of  Illinois,  the  Alton's 
St.  Louis  Limited  came  plunging  through  the  town, 
half  an  hour  late.  The  three  men  halted.  The  great 
mysterious,  vestibuled  train,  with  its  darkly  cur- 
tained Pullmans,  slid  across  the  bridge.  As  they 
stood  waiting  for  it  to  pass  that  they  might  go  under, 
the  governor  withdrew  his  hand  from  his  pocket, 
the  paper  still  folded  in  it.  He  held  the  paper  out 
toward  Grigsby. 

"William,"  he  said,  "I  think  you  dropped  some- 
thing." 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST 
CAMPAIGN 

ALL  day  long  Colonel  Talbott  sat  in  his  leather 
chair  in  the  lobby  of  the  Grand,  twiddling  his 
cane,  smoking  his  cigar,  and  talking  politics.  Under 
the  broad  brim  of  his  black  slouch  hat  his  hair  fell 
in  silver  wisps  almost  to  his  shoulders,  and  the  long 
mustache,  drooping  like  a  Georgian's  at  the  corners 
of  his  mouth,  was  as  white  as  his  hair,  save  at  the 
spot  where  his  cigar  had  tinged  it  yellow. 

There  was  not  a  politician  of  either  party  between 
Dunleith  and  Cairo  who  was  not  proud  to  bend  over 
the  old  fellow's  chair,  take  his  thin  hand  and  say: 
"Hello,  Colonel,  what's  new  in  politics?"  The 
colonel  had  one  invariable  reply:  "I'm  out  of  poli- 
tics, and  don't  know  anything.  What  do  you  hear?" 
Sometimes,  if  the  passing  politician  happened  to  be 
of  the  old  day,  the  colonel  would  take  him  by  the 

201 


202  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

arm,  and  they  would  saunter  away  to  the  bar.  If  the 
politician  came  from  northern  Illinois,  the  colonel 
would  take  rye;  if  from  southern  Illinois  the  colonel 
would  take  bourbon ;  such  was  his  idea  of  etiquette. 
Though  never  would  he  take  a  drink  before  break- 
fast, for  a  drink  before  breakfast,  he  told  Carroll, 
was  a  back  log  in  the  fire  that  would  burn  the  live- 
long day. 

Carroll  was  the  staff  of  the  colonel's  old  age. 
The  two  would  sit  by  the  hour,  while  the  old  man 
talked  of  the  Nineteenth  Illinois  Cavalry,  of  Lincoln 
and  Douglas,  of  David  Davis  and  Elijah  Haines, 
of  state  and  national  conventions,  in  the  days  when 
he  had  made  and  unmade  congressmen,  governors 
and  senators,  ruling  his  party  in  the  state,  Carroll 
shrewdly  thought,  with  a  discipline  as  rigid  as  that 
with  which  he  had  welded  the  Nineteenth  Illinois 
into  a  fighting  regiment. 

To  those  who  knew  the  veteran's  history,  his  love 
for  the  boy  was  touching.  The  story  is  too  long  to 
tell  now,  but  its  essential  motif  must  always  be  the 
ingratitude  of  Si  Warren.  The  colonel  had  picked 
Warren  up  in  the  old  Fifteenth  District,  sent  him 
to  Congress,  and  finally  made  a  United  States  sen- 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    203 

ator  of  him.  Warren,  developing  quickly  as  a  poli- 
tician, had  turned  around,  defeated  the  colonel  for 
reelection  as  chairman  of  the  state  executive  com- 
mittee, a  position  he  had  held  for  sixteen  years,  had 
frozen  him  out  of  the  Arizona  deal,  and  somehow 
caused  the  colonel's  only  son  to  go  wrong  out  there 
in  Tucson.  The  boy's  mother  had  died ;  of  a  broken 
heart,  they  said.  Since  then  a  decade  had  passed,  a 
decade  which  the  colonel  had  spent  in  the  grim  lone- 
someness  of  a  crowded  hotel.  He  never  mentioned 
Warren's  name.  If  he  heard  it,  he -clenched  his  bony 
fists  so  tightly  that  the  knuckles  showed  white.  Once 
a  year,  perhaps,  in  the  springtime,  when  the  state 
central  committee  met,  he  got  out  his  white  waist- 
coat and  was  invited  up  to  the  ordinary  to  make  a 
speech  on  the  state  of  the  party,  and  once  a  year,  in 
the  summertime,  he  attended  a  reunion  of  his  regi- 
ment, now  decimated  to  a  squadron  of  tottering  old 
men,  whom  the  colonel  called  "boys." 

Spring  came,  rolling  up  from  the  muddy  Ohio, 
showering  its  apple  blossoms  in  the  orchards  of 
Egypt,  sprinkling  with  purple  flowers  the  prairies 
of  central  Illinois,  and  finally  flooding  with  tardy 
sunshine  the  cold  waters  of  Lake  Michigan.  It  was 


204  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

the  year  the  legislature  that  chose  Warren's  succes- 
sor in  the  senate  was  to  be  elected,  and  when  the 
senator  came  home  from  Washington  he  found  his 
fences  in  sad  repair.  The  Silas  Warren  of  the  parlor 
suite  in  a  Lake  Front  hotel  was  not  the  Si  Warren 
whom  Colonel  Talbott  had  rescued  from  the  dusty 
little  law  office  down  in  Shelbyville  fifteen  years  be- 
fore. The  clothes  of  that  time  were  faded  by  the  sun 
in  which  he  loafed  all  day  on  the  post-office  corner, 
whereas  the  clothes  of  this  spring  morning  bespoke 
a  New  York  tailor  and  a  valet. 

The  senator  was  not  in  a  pleasant  mood.  There 
was  opposition  to  his  reelection,  and  while  his 
machine  ignored  it,  and  while  George  R.  Baldwin, 
the  lawyer  who  watched  the  interests  of  certain  big 
corporations  during  the  sessions  of  the  legislature, 
said  it  was  but  a  sporadic  demonstration  of  sore- 
heads, back  numbers  and  labor  skates,  it  was  spread- 
ing, as  the  picturesque  politicians  from  the  corn 
lands  of  central  Illinois  would  say,  like  a  prairie  fire. 
Jacksonville,  where  the  standard  of  revolt  had  first 
been  raised,  was  in  Morgan,  the  colonel's  home 
county,  and  so  it  came  to  pass  that  the  defection  was 
laid  to  the  machinations  of  the  colonel  himself.  And 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    205 

yet,  as  the  politicians  who  were  always  dropping  into 
Chicago  to  correct  their  reckonings,  paused  an  in- 
stant by  the  leather  chair,  the  old  white  head  would 
slowly  wag  from  side  to  side,  and  the  old  man  would 
say: 

"No,  I'm  out  of  politics." 

If  Carroll  had  not  conceived  the  idea  of  running 
for  office,  perhaps  the  colonel  would  have  remained 
out  of  politics,  but  the  boy,  after  a  week  of  dream- 
ing, dramatized  himself  as  making  a  speech  in  the 
state  senate  chamber  at  Springfield.  The  colonel,  as 
a  man's  duty  is,  advised  him  to  keep  out  of  politics, 
and  yet  within  an  hour  after  Carroll  shyly  con- 
fessed his  ambition,  the  fever  awoke  in  the  old  fel- 
low's bones,  his  eyes  flamed  with  the  old  fire,  and  he 
admitted  that  the  experience  might  help  a  boy  who 
was  struggling  in  a  pitiless  city  for  a  law  practice. 

Within  a  week  the  colonel  had  introduced  Carroll 
to  Superintendent  of  Street  and  Alley  Cleaning  Pat- 
rick F.  Gibbons,  who  promised  to  be  with  him,  and 
had  taken  him  to  the  city  hall  for  an  audience  with 
the  mayor.  After  that  the  newspapers  said  that 
John  D.  Carroll  had  been  slated  for  the  senatorial 
nomination  in  the  First  District. 


206  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"When  Warren  learned  of  the  colonel's  new  inter- 
est in  the  campaign,  he  cunningly  decided  to  utilize  it 
by  throwing  his  strength  to  Carroll  in  the  First,  pro- 
vided the  colonel  would  withdraw  his  opposition. 
He  prided  himself  on  being  a  man  who  harbored  no 
resentments.  So  he  sent  Dan  Ford,  his  private  sec- 
retary, to  open  negotiations  for  peace. 

The  colonel  had  recognized  the  coming  of  the  heat 
by  donning  his  suit  of  linen,  with  a  red  tie  at  his 
throat  to  give  the  touch  of  color  he  always  loved, 
and  he  had  got  out  his  broad-leaved  Panama  hat  for 
its  fifteenth  season.  Ford  found  him  seated  in  the 
leather  chair,  swinging  one  thin  leg  over  the  other, 
his  white  hose  wrinkling  over  his  low  shoes,  telling 
Carroll  how  Grant  came  to  Springfield  from  Galena 
seeking  a  commission  in  the  army.  Ford  diplomat- 
ically broached  the  subject  of  a  conference  between 
the  colonel  and  the  senator.  The  colonel  heard  him 
to  the  end,  but  said  nothing.  His  mustache  simply 
lifted  a  little  with  the  curl  of  his  lip.  Ford  was  evi- 
dently disappointed. 

"Have  you  any  reply?"  he  asked,  "or  any  mes- 
sage?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  colonel,  and  his  gray  eyes  flashed 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    207 

under  their  shaggy  brows.  "Present  my  compli- 
ments to  Senator  Warren,  and  tell  him  that  if  he 
ever  presumes  to  speak  to  me  again  in  all  his  life,  I'll 
slap  his  face,  and  if  he  resents  it,  I'll  kill  him." 

Ford  tried  to  bow,  and  the  colonel,  turning  to 
Carroll,  said : 

"As  I  was  saying,  General  Palmer  happened  to  go 
into  the  adjutant-general's  office  and  saw  Grant 
smoking  a  corn-cob  pipe  and  working  away  on  mus- 
ter rolls  at  a  broken  table  propped  up  in  one  corner 
of  the  room.  The  old  forage  cap  he  had  worn  in 
the  Mexican  War  was  lying  on  the  table.  It  was  the 
only  hat  he  had  in  those  days." 

The  next  morning  an  interview  with  Warren  ap- 
peared in  all  the  papers. 

"I  would  prefer,"  the  senator  was  reported  as  say- 
ing, "to  retire  to  private  life  and  resume  my  inter- 
rupted law  practice,  if  I  were  not  compelled  to  seek 
vindication  by  the  bushwhacking  of  this  doting  old 
ingrate,  who,  disappointed  in  his  attempts  to  monop- 
olize patronage  that  belongs  to  patriotic  party 
workers,  now  skulks  behind  the  sympathy  his  years 
and  infirmities  excite,  to  wage  a  guerrilla  warfare." 

The  colonel  read  the  interview  at  breakfast.    He 


208  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

sat  at  the  table  with  one  paper  propped  up  before  him 
and  four  others  beside  his  plate,  his  eye-glasses  on 
his  nose,  and  ate  his  oatmeal  and  his  beefsteak  and 
his  boiled  eggs  just  as  he  did  on  every  morning  of 
the  year.  Then  he  drank  the  half  cup  of  coffee  that 
he  always  reserved,  with  its  cream  slowly  coagulat- 
ing at  the  surface,  for  the  end  of  his  meal,  because  it 
was  cooler  then,  laid  his  napkin  down  and  shuffled 
slowly  out. 

Half  an  hour  later  a  man  stopped  by  his  chair 
in  the  lobby  and  said  something  to  the  colonel  that 
made  him  drop  his  paper,  and  look  up  over  his  eye- 
glasses with  a  scowl.  The  man  was  known  as  Birdy 
Quinn,  and  he  had  lost  his  job  in  the  water  office  the 
week  before,  because  Warren  wished  to  make  room 
for  a  fellow  who  could  deliver  more  votes  at  the 
coming  primaries  than  Birdy  could. 

"Are  you  sure?"  the  colonel  asked. 

"Sure !  Isn't  it  all  over  the  ward  this  morning?" 

"You're  sure  that  Pat  Gibbons  consented  to  run 
as  Warren's  candidate  for  state  senator  in  the  First 
District  against  Carroll — after  promising  me — me?" 
He  bent  his  brows  angrily  and  pointed  with  a  long 
forefinger  at  his  own  breast. 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    209 

"Well,  hell's  bells!"  said  Quinn.  "Wasn't  Bald- 
win working  with  him  half  the  night?" 

The  colonel  took  his  glasses  from  his  nose  and 
swinging  them  by  their  heavy  cord,  blinked  with  his 
old  eyes  at  the  square  of  sunlight  blazing  in  the 
Clark  Street  entrance,  across  which,  as  on  a  vividly 
illuminated  screen,  the  crowds  on  the  sidewalk  flitted 
like  trembling  figures  in  a  kinetoscope.  Presently  he 
lifted  himself  heavily  from  his  chair  and  gathered 
up  his  newspapers  and  his  stick. 

"Well,  Birdy,"  he  said  wearily,  "I  guess  I've  got 
one  more  fight  left  in  me." 

Most  men  thought  it  was  Warren's  interview  that 
caused  the  colonel  to  consent  at  last  to  lead  the  op- 
position against  him,  though  some  said  it  was  but 
the  fascination  of  politics,  which  is  like  the  fascina- 
tion of  the  sea,  so  that  a  man  who  follows  it  once 
must  follow  it  till  he  dies. 

"I  never  thought  I'd  live  to  see  the  day  when  I'd 
be  glad  to  find  the  old  man's  chair  empty,"  said  Eph 
Harkness,  of  Macoupin,  that  afternoon.  He  had 
come  up  from  Carlinville  in  response  to  a  telegram 
from  the  colonel,  and  having  registered,  and  given 


210  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

his  bag  and  linen  duster  to  a  bell-boy,  was  removing 
his  big  felt  hat  to  mop  his  wet  brow. 

"I'm  afraid  he  won't  be  able  to  stand  the  strain  of 
a  campaign,"  said  Carroll. 

"Stand  the  strain!  Him?"  exclaimed  Harkness. 
"Why,  he'll  be  alive  and  drawing  pay  when  they're 
referring  to  Si  Warren  as  ex-senator !" 

"I  hate  to  have  them  say  such  mean  things  about 
him,"  Carroll  persisted,  thinking  of  the  interview. 

"If  they  think  they  kin  say  any  meaner  things 
'bout  him  than  he  kin  'bout  them,  jes'  let  'em  lam 
in,"  chuckled  Mosely,  of  Alexander. 

"Yes,"  mused  Harkness,  "it'll  be  the  greatest  fight 
we've  had  in  Illinois  since  Logan's  time.  We've 
got  a  leader  now." 

There  was  an  echo  of  the  old  days  in  his  voice, 
which,  with  its  gentle  hint  of  regret,  was  lost  on 
Carroll,  who  had  not  known  the  colonel  in  the  old 
days. 

They  found  the  colonel  in  his  room,  sitting  by 
an  open  window,  his  Panama  hat  on  his  head,  his 
cigar  in  his  teeth,  and  his  walking-stick  twirling  in 
his  long  fingers.  The  room  did  not  present  that 
orderly  and  cool  appearance  it  had  on  the  few  occa- 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    211 

sions  when  Carroll  had  been  in  it  before.  The 
shades  were  high  at  the  window,  admitting  flames  of 
heat,  wads  of  crumpled  paper  bestrewed  the  floor, 
a  huge  table  had  been  brought  in  and  it  was 
already  littered  with  newspapers  and  telegraph 
blanks.  The  bureau  had  been  moved,  the  tall  white 
door  it  had  hidden  so  long  had  been  unlocked,  and 
Carroll  heard  the  incessant  clicking  of  a  typewriter 
in  the  adjoining  room.  Two  or  three  men  sat  idly 
about,  gossiping,  as  men  will,  about  political  battles 
of  the  past.  There  seemed  to  be  none  of  the  in- 
dustry of  politics  apparent,  though  political  head- 
quarters seldom  do  display  that,  perhaps  because  a 
good  part  of  the  industry  of  politics  consists  in  talk- 
ing and  smoking  and  drinking,  and  partly,  perhaps, 
because  of  the  necessity  of  concealment  that  always 
exists.  These  men  were  gathered  to  organize  the 
defeat  of  a  crafty  and  unscrupulous  man  who  had 
a  national,  state  and  city  machine  at  his  command, 
with  money  to  heart's  desire,  and  yet  they  sat  and 
smoked,  stirring  only  when  a  telegram  came  from 
down  the  state,  or  some  long-forgotten  politician 
came  in  to  offer  himself  as  a  recruit. 

For  a  month  the  colonel  did  not  go  out  of  the 


212 

hotel.  He  was  up  early  and  at  work,  his  cigar  in 
his  mouth,  dictating  letters,  sending  telegrams,  re- 
ceiving callers.  When  he  slept,  no  one  knew.  He 
never  had  his  hat  off.  He  ate  his  meals  from  a  tray 
in  his  room,  after  the  food  had  grown  cold.  His 
headquarters  recalled  pathetically  the  old  days  when 
his  power  and  supremacy  were  unquestioned.  They 
were  crowded  day  and  night  with  the  back-num- 
bers and  the  soreheads  Baldwin  had  talked  about, 
who  came  with  their  grievances,  their  impossible 
schemes,  their  paltry  ambitions.  Of  such  stuff 
the  colonel  had  to  make  his  machine,  flattering, 
threatening,  wheedling,  soothing  jealousies,  recon- 
ciling discordant  factions,  healing  old  animosities, 
inflaming  new  hatreds,  keeping  up  spirit  in  faint 
hearts,  leaving  not  a  wire  unpulled.  He  appointed 
a  steering  committee,  on  which  were  Mosely,  of 
Alexander;  Garwood,  of  Kankakee;  Harkness,  of 
Macoupin,  and  Malachi  Nolan;  he  wrote  personal 
letters  to  old  friends  in  every  school  district  in  the 
state,  and  thus,  slowly,  patiently,  laboriously  welded 
his  organization  together.  What  he  most  needed  was 
funds,  and  a  candidate  to  provide  funds;  lacking 
them,  he  insisted  that  this  was  not  a  movement  for 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    213 

the  profit  of  any  one  man,  but  for  the  good  of  the 
party  alone,  and  so  invested  it  with  the  enthusiasm 
of  what  passes  for  patriotism  in  a  nation  where  party 
is  set  above  country.  He  told  the  landlord  of  the 
Grand  that  he  would  be  responsible  for  the  rent  of 
the  two  rooms  he  had  engaged  next  his  own.  He  al- 
ready owed  the  landlord. 

The  night  before  the  primaries  a  crowd,  foul  with 
the  reek  of  tobacco,  alcohol  and  perspiration,  was 
shuffling  about  in  the  hall  and  anterooms  of  the 
colonel's  headquarters.  The  crowd  was  noisy,  pro- 
fane and  confident.  But  inside,  the  steering  commit- 
tee was  assembled,  and  it  was  very  sober.  Garwood, 
at  the  littered  table,  had  been  scratching  his  head 
over  political  equations. 

Conventions  had  been  held  in  all  the  thirty-six 
outside  districts,  and  sixty-nine  candidates  had  been 
nominated,  fifty-five  representatives  and  fourteen 
senators.  Of  these  they  could  depend  upon  twenty- 
nine.  It  requires  fifty-two  to  control  a  legislative 
caucus,  when  the  party  has  a  bare  majority  on  joint 
ballot,  so  they  would  have  to  nominate  at  least 
twenty-three  of  their  candidates  in  Cook  County  to 
get  a  caucus  majority,  assuming  the  ultimate  elec- 


214  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

tion  of  them  all.  Fifty-seven  candidates  were  to 
be  selected  in  Cook  County  on  the  morrow.  Of 
them,  they  should  name  at  least  thirty-five  to  be  en- 
tirely safe.  In  other  words,  they  must  carry  Cook 
County. 

"Is  that  countin'  hold-over  senators?"  asked 
Mosely,  when  Garwood  was  done. 

"Yes,  counting  the  hold-overs — Warren  claims 
fourteen  out  of  the  seventeen." 

"Josh  Badger  never'll  vote  for  him,"  said  Mosely. 

"He  gives  us  Josh,"  Garwood  replied.  "Bates 
and  Halliday  are  uncertain." 

"Not  so  damned  uncertain,"  said  Mosely. 
"They're  only  waitin'  to  be  seen." 

"Warren'll  get  them  easy  enough,"  said  Harkness. 

"Yes,  they're  cheap,"  Mosely  assented,  spitting 
across  the  room  at  an  iron  cuspidor.  "  'Bout  eight 
dollars  apiece,  I'd  guess  'em  off  at,"  he  added,  with 
a  poor  man's  contempt  for  low  prices. 

"Well,  that  only  makes  it  worse,"  replied  Gar- 
wood.  "But  leave  them  out  entirely.  With  sixty- 
two  votes  Warren  can  control  the  caucus — " 

"Providin'  al'ays,  however,"  suggested  Mosely, 
in  statutory  language. 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    215 

"Oh,  course,"  assented  Garwood,  petulant  from 
the  heat  and  the  situation,  "they  won't  all  be  elected. 
That's  why  he'll  work  like  hell  to  carry  Cook.  He 
lies  when  he  says  he  doesn't  give  a  damn  how  she 
goes  to-morrow." 

"He  always  does  that,"  said  the  colonel,  from  his 
bed. 

Carroll,  to  whom  political  calculations  savored 
always  of  the  mystery  of  higher  mathematics,  said : 

"Seems  to  me  you  could  figure  it  better  than  that." 

"Well,  you  try  it,"  said  Garwood,  dropping  his 
pencil  and  tilting  back  in  his  chair. 

There  was  not  much  hope,  and  the  soberness 
deepened.  After  a  while  there  was  a  knock  on  the 
door,  and  a  shaven  head  was  thrust  in. 

"Them  lit'ry  guys  is  out  here,"  said  the  shaven 
head.  "Any  figur's  to  give  out?" 

"Figur's  ?"  cried  Mosely.  "We've  got  th'  official 
vote!" 

And  Garwood,  taking  his  papers  from  the  table, 
went  out  and  said  to  the  reporters : 

"Conventions  have  been  held  in  all  the  senatorial 
districts  down  the  state,  and  sixty-nine  candidates 
are  already  nominated.  Of  these  sixty-nine,  we 


216  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

have  beyond  any  question" — he  consulted  his  paper, 
as  if  to  make  sure  of  the  number — "we  have  fifty- 
three,  and  that  doesn't  include  the  nine  hold-over 
senators  who  are  with  us.  We  can  lose  ten  of  them 
at  the  polls  and  still  have  enough  to  control  the 
caucus.  In  Cook  County,  to-morrow,  we'll  carry 
the  First,  Third,  Fifth,  Sixth,  Ninth,  Eleventh, 
Seventeenth,  Nineteenth,  Twenty-first,  Twenty- 
third  and  the  country  towns — the  Seventh — giving 
us  thirty-five  more  candidates,  or  ninety-seven  in 
all.  This  is  a  conservative  estimate,  and  gives  the 
doubtful  districts  to  Warren.  We  can  lose  Cook  to- 
morrow and  still  have  a  fighting  chance  to  win  out. 
I  regard  the  battle  as  ours.  Senator  Warren  is  de- 
feated." 

"Over  at  the  Richelieu,"  said  Cowley,  of  the 
News-Despatch,  "Baldwin  claims  they  have  you 
whipped  to  a  standstill." 

"They're  welcome  over  there  to  any  comfort  they 
can  get  out  of  the  situation,"  said  Gar  wood  in  a 
superior  way. 

It  rained  on  the  day  of  the  primaries.  All  morn- 
ing politicians,  big  and  little,  stamped  into  Senator 
Warren's  hotel  on  Michigan  Avenue,  or  stamped 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    217 

into  the  Grand,  tracking  with  greasy  mud  the  muslin 
that  had  been  stretched  over  the  carpet  in  Colonel 
Talbott's  headquarters.  The  polls  were  to  open  at 
one  o'clock.  The  colonel  had  risen  early,  after  three 
hours'  sleep,  and  snatched  his  breakfast  from  a  tray, 
talking  to  Carroll  between  bites.  All  morning  he 
was  buttonholed  by  men  who  scuffled  for  a  word, 
complaining  that  Warren's  fellows  would  have 
money  to  burn,  and  he  fought  with  them,  bill  by  bill, 
for  the  few  dollars  he  had  in  his  pocket.  He  was 
only  liberal,  to  the  extent  that  his  slender  campaign 
funds  permitted  liberality,  with  those  who  were  to 
work  in  Carroll's  district.  As  the  day  wore  on  and 
he  received  reports  and  despatched  orders,  like  a 
general  fighting  a  battle,  the  colonel's  spirits  rose, 
and  the  politicians,  when  he  ordered  them  sharply 
about,  paused  at  the  door  to  look  back  at  him,  pleased 
by  the  thought  that  this  was  the  Colonel  Talbott  of 
the  good  old  days. 

It  was  a  wicked  battle  they  fought  out  at  the  polls 
that  day.    The  Warren  men  had  control  of  the  party 
organization  and  named  the  judges  and  clerks.   In- 
mates of  lodging  houses,  and  Lake  Front  hoboes, 
Mheir  rags  steaming  in  the  warm  rain,  were  hauled 


218  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

from  poll  to  poll  in  big  moving  vans,  and  voted 
wherever  Warren  needed  votes  and  as  often  as  he 
pleased.  The  city  hall  took  a  hand  and  furnished 
policemen  in  larger  numbers  than  the  primary  elec- 
tion law  intended,  so  that  whenever  an  anti- Warren 
challenger  challenged  a  vote  he  was  hustled  by  offi- 
cers, and  if  he  resisted,  bundled  off  to  the  Harrison 
Street  police  station  and  locked  up  on  a  charge  of 
disturbance.  Late  in  the  afternoon  reports  coming 
from  Halsted  Street  that  the  Fifth  Ward  was  in 
danger,  the  colonel  escaped  from  his  headquarters 
and  went  into  the  trenches  himself.  Carroll  never 
forgot  the  old  man  as  he  splashed  from  poll  to  poll 
that  waning  summer  day,  or  stood  in  the  drenching 
rain  before  a  voting  booth,  waving  back  policemen, 
ordering  men  up  to  vote,  threatening  judges  and 
clerks.  He  had  never  heard  the  old  man  swear  be- 
fore. 

At  seven  o'clock  the  polls  closed.  Warren  carried 
some  of  the  districts,  the  opposition  others.  Both 
claimed  the  victory.  It  was  left  for  the  convention 
to  decide. 

The  colonel,  for  some  reason,  preferred  not  to 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    219 

get  up  the  next  morning,  but  opened  his  mail,  read 
his  papers,  ate  his  breakfast,  and  finally  held  his 
morning  levee,  the  last  of  the  campaign,  in  bed.  The 
politicians  who  had  been  waiting  outside  for  an 
hour,  grumbled  at  such  indolence,  and,  when  they 
were  finally  admitted  to  their  leader's  presence,  sus- 
pected him  of  imitating  the  undemocratic  luxurious- 
ness  of  Senator  Warren,  who  received  his  callers  in 
bed  every  morning.  But  by  nine  o'clock  they  had 
received  their  final  instructions  and  scattered  to  the 
conventions,  and  when  Mosely  and  Garwood  saun- 
tered in  from  the  breakfast-room,  they  found  only 
a  few  stragglers,  who  lingered  on  in  the  hope  of  beer 
money,  at  least,  for  their  imaginary  services  on  this 
decisive  day.  Malachi  Nolan,  in  black  garments 
and  white  cravat,  came  presently,  his  big  diamond 
flashing,  his  face  shining  and  red  from  his  dull 
razor,  and  then  Carroll,  at  the  sound  of  whose 
young  step  and  fresh  laugh  the  colonel  succeeded  in 
evoking  a  wan,  tired  smile. 

"Just  lazy,  that's  all,"  he  declared  reassuringly, 
seeing  Carroll  halt  in  surprise.  He  reared  himself 
on  his  elbow,  and  as  he  raised  his  head,  its  white 
hair  all  tangled,  Carroll  saw  how  haggard  he  was. 


220  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

He  never  had  seen  him  look  so  old,  so  white,  so 
worn,  before. 

"I  was  waiting  for  you,"  said  the  colonel,  indicat- 
ing Nolan  with  a  finger  that  was  like  a  claw.  "I've 
fixed  everything  but  the  First  District."  He  paused 
for  breath.  "The  First  Ward's  solid,  isn't  it?  Well, 
all  right.  But  watch  Donahue.  I'm  sorry  we  ever 
let  him  get  on  the  delegation.  And  then,  let's  see" — 
he  pressed  his  brow  in  a  troubled  effort  to  steady  his 
senses — "oh,  yes.  See  McGlynn  and  have  him  lay 
down  on  Hardy,  and  tell  Reinhold  that  if  he  wants 
that  job  from  the  South  Park  board  he'd  better  get 
in  line,  and  as  to  Wright — his  brother's  a  conductor 
on  the  Cottage  Grove  line,  and  you  can  get  at  him 
through  Harlow.  Tell  him  I  sent  you.  That'll  give 
you  thirty-five  votes  on  the  first  ballot,  and — " 

Carroll,  who  had  turned  to  reply  to  some  jest  of 
Mosely's,  heard  a  groan.  Instantly  he  looked  back 
at  the  colonel.  The  old  politician,  his  face  livid, 
was  struggling  as  if  he  wished  to  get  out  of  bed. 
He  writhed  a  moment,  then  his  head  nodded,  his 
chin  dropped  to  his  breast,  and  he  collapsed  in  a 
heap,  among  the  tumbled  bedclothes.  Carroll  paled 
with  a  sudden  sickness. 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    221 

"He's  fainted,"  said  Garwood,  fumbling  at  the 
throat  of  the  colonel's  shirt.  Malachi  Nolan  brought 
a  cup  of  water,  Mosely  hunted  impatiently  for  a 
flask  of  whisky,  and  when  they  had  straightened  him 
out  upon  his  pillows,  Carroll  ran  for  the  hotel  physi- 
cian. The  colonel  recovered  consciousness  before 
the  physician  came  and  glanced  around  with  an 
expression  of  embarrassment. 

"Damn  such  a  heart,  anyway,"  he  said.  Then 
young  Doctor  Lambert  came  with  his  new  stetho- 
scope. When  the  doctor  had  finished  his  ausculta- 
tion, the  colonel  said : 

"Malachi,  vote  your  delegation  solid  every  time — 
don't  give  complimentary  votes — it's  dangerous. 
And  remember — I  don't  care  what  happens  so  long 
as  Carroll's  nominated,  trade  anything,  everything 
for  that,  and  send  me  word — " 

But  they  hushed  him. 

At  noon  Doctor  Foerder,  the  specialist,  arrived. 

"Ah,  Lambert,"  he  said,  scowling  about  him  as 
he  put  down  his  tremendous  leather  valise,  big  with 
the  mysterious  contrivances  of  modern  surgery, 
pulled  off  his  gloves,  and  with  his  quick,  profes- 
sional tread,  stepped  to  the  bedside.  He  exposed 


222  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

the  colonel's  big  chest,  and  began  a  delicate  percus- 
sion with  his  white  fingers.  When  he  had  done  tap- 
ping, he  laid  his  ear  over  the  colonel's  heart,  and 
listened  silently  a  long  time  to  the  cardiac  murmurs, 
he  rolled  under  his  fingers  the  superficial  vessels  of 
the  temples,  the  forearms,  the  wrists,  the  knees,  he 
counted  the  pulse;  and  he  looked  long  at  the  old 
man's  finger-nails.  When  he  paused,  the  colonel  said : 

"Well?" 

Doctor  Foerder  had  retreated  from  the  bedside 
and  was  writing  his  directions  precisely,  logically,  as 
an  official  draws  up  a  report,  beginning  each  para- 
graph with  a  Roman  numeral.  He  did  not  answer 
the  colonel. 

Foerder  briefly  consulted  with  Lambert,  that  is, 
repeated  the  directions  he  had  already  written  out, 
and  began  to  buckle  his  big  valise. 

"And  as  to  a  nurse?"  asked  Doctor  Lambert. 

"I'll  send  one  of  my  own,"  said  Foerder,  hastily 
lighting  a  Russian  cigarette.  He  could  not  remain 
long  in  one  place.  He  had  patients  to  see  and  a 
lecture  to  deliver  over  at  Rush  Medical  College  and 
his  man  was  waiting  with  his  high-hooded  pbaeton 
down  in  Jackson  Boulevard. 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    223 

The  nurse,  diffusing  a  faint  odor  of  antiseptics, 
came  from  Doctor  Foerder's  private  hospital,  laid 
aside  her  bonnet  and  veil  and  pausing  an  instant  to 
give  a  woman's  touch  to  her  hair,  quietly  and  deftly 
set  the  room  in  order. 

All  that  afternoon  the  colonel  lay  in  his  darkened 
bedroom,  fighting  the  battle  of  his  life.  He  lay  so 
still  that  the  nurse  almost  fancied  him  asleep,  so 
regular  was  his  breathing.  Once  he  broke  the  silence 
by  asking  the  time. 

"Twenty  minutes  after  three,"  the  nurse  re- 
sponded, glancing  at  her  little  watch. 

"Some  of  the  conventions,  then,"  the  colonel  said, 
"are  over.  I  wonder  why  they  don't  send  me  word." 

The  nurse  did  not  notice  his  speech,  and  he  added : 

"Pardon  me,  you  doubtless  are  not  interested  in 
politics." 

The  talking  brought  on  a  spasm  of  dyspnoea,  and 
the  colonel  struggled  so  painfully  for  his  breath 
that  the  nurse  had  to  prop  him  up  with  pillows  in  a 
sitting  posture,  as  those  who  are  afflicted  with 
asthma  pass  their  nights,  finding  it  easier  thus  to 
breathe.  The  colonel  begged  the  nurse's  pardon,  as 
if  he  had  committed  some  indelicacy. 


224  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

About  this  time  news  was  brought  from  the  Fifth 
District  convention  in  Arlington  Hall  and  from  the 
Sixth  in  Jung's  Hall,  that  the  Warren  men  had 
carried  both  districts.  The  colonel,  hearing  the 
hoarse  whispering  between  the  messengers  and 
Mosely  in  the  room  outside,  demanded  information, 
and  Doctor  Lambert  had  to  tell  him.  The  colonel 
wished  to  see  Mosely,  he  had  some  new  plan  for  the 
West  Side  to  offset  their  loss;  and  he  saw  Mosely 
and  the  plan  was  put  in  execution.  Then  the  colonel 
seemed  once  more  to  sleep.  When  he  opened  his 
eyes  he  asked  if  he  could  not  have  a  cigar — "seegar," 
he  pronounced  it — assuring  the  nurse  that  he  felt 
much  better,  but  she  said,  as  one  might  say  to  the 
whim  of  a  child  to  whom  explanations  are  not  vouch- 
safed : 

"Not  just  now." 

And  there  was  silence  again,  and  the  ticking  of 
the  nurse's  little  watch. 

By  four  o'clock  the  colonel  became  restless  once 
more,  and  asked  if  there  were  any  news.  When  the 
nurse  said  no,  he  insisted  that  there  must  be  some 
message,  some  letter,  some  telegram.  He  did  not 
know  that  his  followers,  vindicating  all  history,  were 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    225 

now  standing  afar  off.  He  worried  and  grew  inco- 
herent. He  seemed  to  confuse  Carroll  with  the  boy 
who  was  sleeping  under  the  stars  far  away  in 
Arizona. 

Doctor  Foerder  returned  at  four  o'clock.  He  had 
not  been  expected  before  evening,  but  he  was  inter- 
ested in  the  case.  He  had  mentioned  it  in  his  lecture 
that  day.  He  had  commented  on  the  wonderful 
display  of  vitality  on  the  patient's  part,  and  spoken 
of  the  value  in  such  cases  of  moral  treatment,  of 
encouraging  words  and  a  confident  manner.  He 
read  the  nurse's  chart,  counted  the  colonel's  pulse 
for  fifteen  seconds  and  calculated  the  rate  by  multi- 
plication, drew  down  the  old  man's  eyelids,  noting 
the  senile  arc  that  was  whitening  the  periphery  of 
the  cornea,  and  he  examined  the  finger-nails;  then 
the  percussion  and  the  auscultation.  When  he  raised 
his  black  head,  the  colonel  said : 

"Any  news?" 

"You're  doing  well." 

"Aw!"  said  the  colonel  impatiently,  "I  don't 
mean  that — any  news  from  the  conventions  ?" 

Foerder  hesitated,  as  if  half  reluctant  to  display 
interest  in  anything  so  human,  but  said  : 


226  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Yes." 

"What?"  said  the  colonel  eagerly,  his  eyes  bright- 
ening with  a  light  that  alarmed  the  doctor. 

"They  say  you've  carried  some  districts  on  the 
North  Side." 

"Which  ones?"  asked  the  colonel. 

"Don't  remember." 

"Anything  else?" 

"Well,  they  say  Warner  has  carried  some  North 
Side  districts,  too — and  some  West  Side  districts." 

"Warner?" 

"Well,  whatever  his  name  is." 

Then  Foerder  was  silent,  and  the  colonel  lay  a 
long  time  thinking. 

"Did  you  learn  how  it's  going  in  the  Ninth,  or 
the  Second,  or  the  Seventeenth  ?" 

"They  say  it's  about  an  even  break  everywhere." 

"And  how's  the  First?"  The  colonel  put  this 
question  in  a  whisper,  as  if  he  feared  the  answer. 
The  doctor  did  not  know.  Then  the  silence  again, 
and  the  colonel's  labored  breathing,  and  the  tick- 
ing of  the  nurse's  little  gold  watch. 

"What  district  do  you  live  in,  Doctor?"  the  colo- 
nel asked  later. 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    227 

"I  ?"  replied  the  medical  man  in  some  surprise. 

"Yes." 

"I — why,  I  don't  know,"  he  said. 

The  colonel  faintly  smiled.  "Where  do  you  live, 
then?" 

"In  Drexel  Boulevard." 

"That's  the  Fifth,"  the  colonel  said.  "Warren 
carried  that." 

"Did  he?"  The  doctor  looked  as  if  he  were 
ashamed.  "We  mustn't  talk  any  more  just  now." 

Foerder  remained  until  evening,  pacing  the  ante- 
room, his  hands  behind  him,  his  lips  twitching  in  his 
involuntary  smile.  Now  and  then  he  took  a  turn  in 
the  long,  dark,  softly  carpeted  hall,  to  smoke  a  cig- 
arette. At  times  some  politician  would  come  with 
a  scared  face  and  inquire  about  the  colonel,  and  the 
doctor  always  demanded  news  of  the  battle,  before 
he  answered  the  questions.  The  reports  brought  by 
the  politicians  were  not  encouraging,  and  they  hur- 
ried outside  again.  Their  visits,  as  the  afternoon 
waned,  became  fewer.  Even  Mosely  and  Garwood 
had  been  glad  of  the  exciting  excuse  offered  by  the 
First  District  convention  in  Italia  Hall  down  Clark 
Street  to  escape  from  the  shadowed  headquarters. 


228  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

At  six  o'clock  no  one  had  been  there  for  an  hour, 
save  some  sympathetic  bell-boys  and  porters  from 
down-stairs,  and  Carroll,  of  course — he  came  every 
half-hour  from  the  convention,  disheveled,  bathed  in 
perspiration,  his  eyes  burning  with  excitement  and 
suspense.  Foerder  would  not  allow  him  to  see  the 
colonel,  who  lay  behind  the  white  door,  his  eyes 
half  closed,  too  weak  any  longer  to  whisper. 

At  seven  o'clock  the  reporters  came,  and  Doctor 
Foerder,  as  they  put  it,  issued  a  bulletin. 

"He's  alive,"  the  doctor  said,  "pulse  120  to  124, 
respiration  22  to  26,  temperature  98.  His  remark- 
able nerve  alone  sustains  him.  He's  making  the 
most  magnificent  fight  I  ever  saw  in  all  my  life — 
have  you  heard  anything  from  the  convention?" 

"They're  all  over  but  the  one  in  the  First  District," 
one  of  the  reporters  said,  while  they  scribbled  down 
the  physician's  figures.  "It  all  depends  now  upon 
what  that  does.  It's  the  worst  fight  ever  known  in 
Chicago.  They  say  Warren  has  spent  twenty-five 
thousand  to-day." 

"Does  it  look  as  if  he  could  be  elected  there — 
in  the  First,  you  know?" 

The  reporters  smiled  and  winked  one  at  another. 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    229 

The  colonel  lay  like  one  asleep,  until  far  along  in 
the  evening.  Once  or  twice  he  opened  his  eyes  and 
looked  an  inquiry  into  the  doctor's  eyes,  but  Foerder 
could  only  shake  his  head.  And  once  or  twice  he 
muttered  something  about  Baldwin,  and  was  trou- 
bled that  they  could  not  understand.  Then  he  sank 
into  a  state  of  coma,  and  the  news  for  which  all 
were  waiting  would  not  come. 

Doctor  Foerder  was  for  ever  glancing  at  his 
watch  and  asking  Lambert  how  he  thought  the  First 
District  convention  would  turn  out.  Lambert  had 
no  idea. 

"I  hope  we'll  win,"  Foerder  would  say.  Finally 
he  sent  Lambert  down  for  news.  Lambert  hurried 
back.  They  had  taken  forty-six  ballots,  he  said, 
and  the  vote  was  tied.  At  ten  o'clock  Doctor  Foerder 
examined  the  colonel  again,  examined  his  eyes,  his 
finger-nails,  drummed  on  his  chest,  listened  to  his 
heart. 

"You're  magnificent !"  he  could  not  refrain  from 
whispering,  but  his  patient  did  not  answer  or  look, 
or  even  smile  this  time.  He  was  growing  very  weak. 
His  breathing  was  faint,  he  inhaled  the  air  through 
livid  lips.  He  did  not  arouse  from  his  stupor. 


230  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

Doctor  Foerder  got  very  impatient.  "We  can't 
wait  much  longer,"  he  said. 

"It's  all  we  can  do,  now,"  said  Lambert. 

Foerder  went  outside.  The  anteroom  was  de- 
serted. The  politicians  came  no  more.  He  would 
sit  down,  then  instantly  get  up,  walk  back  and  forth ; 
his  eyebrows  knitting  in  his  scowl,  his  lips  twitching 
in  that  mirthless  smile.  And  he  smoked  cigarette 
after  cigarette.  He  did  this  for  an  hour. 

Along  toward  midnight  he  heard  a  step.  Flying 
to  the  door,  he  saw  Carroll,  dragging  down  the  hall 
with  the  step  of  defeat  and  exhaustion.  The  boy's 
hair  was  matted  under  his  hat,  his  eyes  were  dull, 
sunken,  black  as  night. 

"Licked,"  he  said,  waving  his  hands  with  a  ges- 
ture of  despair,  as  if  the  world  had  come  to  an  end. 
Foerder  went  inside,  leaving  Carroll  to  sink  into  the 
first  chair.  But  a  moment  later  the  physician  opened 
the  white  door,  and  beckoned  with  his  head.  The 
motion  was  conclusive,  final.  He  held  the  door  ajar, 
and  Carroll  entered.  The  useless  drugs  had  been 
pushed  aside.  The  room  was  filled  with  the  strange 
silence,  the  odor  of  death.  Lambert  stood  at  the 
window,  looking  out  into  the  darkness.  The  nurse 


THE  COLONEL'S  LAST  CAMPAIGN    231 

stood  by  the  bed,  waiting  to  perform  her  last  office 
for  the  dying  man. 

Carroll  timidly  approached  and  looked  down  at 
the  long  form,  scarcely  outlined  by  the  sheet,  at 
the  rigid  head,  at  the  great,  waxen  brow,  at  the 
little  blue  spheres  formed  by  the  closed  eyelids,  at 
the  mouth  slightly  open  beneath  the  white  mustache 
with  its  tinge  of  yellow.  Doctor  Foerder  was  press- 
ing his  fingers  to  the  colonel's  wrist.  The  breathing 
had  lost  all  human  quality,  it  was  but  a  series  of 
automatic  gasps,  which,  it  seemed,  would  never  end. 
Finally  they  grew  shorter,  at  last  they  ceased,  there 
was  one  faint  inspiration,  and  Doctor  Foerder,  lay- 
ing the  thin  old  hand  down  upon  the  colonel's  breast, 
said: 

"It's  all  over." 

There  was  silence  for  a  whole  minute.  Then 
Doctor  Lambert  tossed  up  the  window,  and  Carroll 
heard,  in  the  street  below,  a  crowd  shuffling  over  the 
sidewalk,  a  crowd  coming,  as  he  knew,  from  the 
convention  in  Italia  Hall.  And  suddenly  from  the 
crowd  arose  a  raucous,  drunken  yell : 

"Hurrah  for  Warren!" 


REFORM  IN  THE  FIRST 

THE  senatorial  convention  in  the  First  District 
was  to  convene  at  ten  o'clock,  in  a  dingy  little 
hall  in  lower  Clark  Street,  lighted  by  windows  so 
long  unwashed  that  they  looked  like  ground  glass. 
From  the  chandeliers,  black  and  sticky  with  dead 
flies,  shreds  of  tissue  paper  fluttered,  relics  of  some 
boisterous  fete  an  Italian  society  had  given  there 
long  ago.  The  floor  was  damp  in  arabesque  wrought 
by  a  sprinkling-can,  for  the  janitor  had  sprayed 
water  there  to  lay  the  dust  he  was  too  indifferent  to 
remove.  Perhaps  a  hundred  chairs  were  set  in  am- 
phitheatrical  order,  and  before  them  stood  a  kitchen 
table,  on  which  was  a  white  water  pitcher,  flanked 
by  a  glass,  thickened  by  various  sedimentary  deposits 
within. 

In  the  saloon  below,  at  nine  o'clock,  scores  of 
232 


REFORM    IN    THE    FIRST  233 

delegates  were  already  shuffling  in  the  sawdust  that 
covered  the  floor,  holding  huge  schooners  of  beer 
in  their  hairy  fists,  gorging  grossly  at  the  free  lunch 
table,  with  bologna,  rank  onions  and  rye  bread.  The 
foam  of  the  beer  clung  to  their  mustaches,  which, 
after  each  sip,  they  sucked  between  their  lips.  Most 
of  them  managed,  at  the  same  time  they  were  eating 
and  drinking,  by  a  dexterous  sleight-of-hand,  to 
smoke  cheap  domestic  cigars,  and  a  cloud  of  white 
smoke  rolled  along  the  low  ceiling.  Each  new  arrival 
was  greeted  with  some  obscene  but  endearing  epi- 
thet, and  the  room  rang  with  laughter  and  profanity. 
A  keg  of  beer  had  been  provided  by  one  of  Conway's 
managers,  and  the  bartender,  wiping  his  hands  on 
a  dirty  towel,  was  rid,  so  long  as  the  keg  lasted,  of 
the  responsibility  of  keeping  account  of  drinks,  and 
of  ringing  up  the  change  on  the  cash  register.  At 
eleven  o'clock  the  keg  was  empty,  the  free  lunch 
table  abandoned  to  the  flies,  and  the  delegates  scuffled 
up  the  dingy  stairs  to  the  hall.  Half  an  hour  later 
the  chairman  of  the  senatorial  district  committee 
pounded  the  kitchen  table  with  a  leg  of  a  broken 
chair,  and  shouted : 

"The  convention  will  be  in  order." 


234  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

This  declaration  made  no  impression  upon  the 
babel  of  voices,  the  laughter,  the  profanity,  the 
noise  of  shuffling  feet  and  scraping  chairs.  The 
delegates  were  scrambling  to  their  places,  seating 
themselves  by  wards.  Reporters  flung  themselves 
into  seats  at  a  second  table  and  gazed  about  the 
room,  noting  who  were  there.  The  political  men  of 
the  morning  papers  did  not  trouble  themselves  to 
take  seats.  They  loafed  among  the  politicians  in 
a  way  superior  to  the  reporters  for  the  afternoon 
papers,  as  if  they  were  politicians  themselves,  mak- 
ing history  instead  of  recording  it. 

Meanwhile  the  noise  did  not  abate,  and  the  com- 
mitteeman  was  growing  red  in  the  face.  The  morn- 
ing was  warm,  and  the  room,  already  cloudy  with 
tobacco  smoke,  was  filling  with  a  noisome  human 
odor.  The  atmosphere  was  feculent.  Delegates 
removed  their  coats,  hanging  them  over  the  backs 
of  their  chairs.  Finally  the  chairman  of  the  com- 
mittee, growing  impatient,  split  the  table  with  his 
club  and  yelled : 

"Damn  it  all,  boys,  come  to  order !" 

And  then,  eager  to  resign  such  a  difficult  com- 
mand, he  hastened  to  announce : 


REFORM    IN    THE    FIRST  235 

"The  committee  has  named  Honorable  John  P. 
Muldoon  to  act  as  temp'ry  chairman." 

He  handed  the  chair  leg  to  John  P.  Muldoon, 
who,  stroking  back  his  curly  hair  from  his  brow, 
began  to  beat  the  table  impartially. 

All  this  while  Underwood  stood  against  the  wall, 
looking  on.  The  question  that  had  been  agitating 
him  for  weeks  was  about  to  be  decided,  but  now  that 
the  ordeal  was  actually  upon  him,  the  consciousness 
beat  numbly  against  his  brain,  so  that  the  whole 
scene  lacked  reality,  almost  interest.  He  was  dazed. 
He  was  about  to  take  his  baptism  of  political  fire, 
and  he  trembled  like  a  white  novitiate. 

Underwood  belonged  to  one  of  the  oldest  families 
of  Chicago — the  name  had  been  known  there  before 
the  fire.  His  father,  who  had  lately  taken  him  into 
his  law  firm,  continued  to  cling  in  his  conservatism 
to  an  old  stone  house  in  Michigan  Avenue  long 
after  his  neighbors  had  abandoned  their  mansions 
to  uncertain  boarders,  and  either  retreated  farther 
south  or  advanced  to  the  North  Side.  John  Under- 
wood had  come  out  of  Harvard  with  a  young  law- 
yer's ambition  in  politics,  an  ambition  that  had  the 
United  States  senate  merely  as  a  beginning  of  its 


236  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

home  stretch,  and  when  the  year  rolled  around  in 
which  state  senators  were  to  be  elected  in  the  odd 
numbered  districts  he  decided  that  it  was  time  to 
begin. 

The  newspapers  had  scented  the  sensation  that 
lurked  in  the  candidature  of  a  young  man  like 
Underwood  in  a  district  like  the  First,  and  because 
he  was  rich,  because  he  wore  good  clothes,  because 
he  went  into  what  is  called  society,  promptly  dubbed 
him  a  reformer,  and  thus  weighted  he  had  set  out 
upon  his  race  for  the  nomination.  He  liked  to  see 
his  name  in  the  newspapers,  liked  to  think  of  him- 
self as  a  reformer,  though  he  was  embarrassed  in 
this  attitude  by  the  fascinating  figure  of  the  political 
boss  he  had  hoped  to  become — a  well-dressed,  gentle- 
manly boss,  of  course,  who,  while  at  home  in  those 
saloons  where  he  permitted  the  convivial  familiarity 
of  the  boys,  nevertheless  took  his  luncheons  at  his 
club.  He  fell  into  a  way  of  speaking  of  the  First  as 
"my  district,"  spoke  of  it,  in  fact,  as  if  he,  instead 
of  Malachi  Nolan  and  "Cinch"  Conway,  owned  it, 
and  when  certain  ward  politicians  in  the  first  days 
of  the  campaign  called  upon  him,  Underwood  was 
pleased  to  lend  them  money,  just  as  he  was  pleased 


REFORM    IN    THE    FIRST  237 

to  comply  with  the  requests  of  certain  others  who 
organized  the  John  W.  Underwood  First  Ward 
Campaign  Club,  and  sent  a  committee  to  inform  him 
that  they  were  assembled  in  the  club  rooms  ready  to 
transact  business,  and  beer  only  four  dollars  a  keg. 
He  winked  confidentially  at  himself  in  the  mirror 
that  night  as  he  gave  a  final  touch  to  his  white  cravat 
and  surveyed  his  fine  young  form  arrayed  in  even- 
ing clothes  for  the  reform  banquet  at  the  Palmer 
House.  His  speech  was  The  Tendencies  of  Modern 
Politics.  The  newspapers  said  it  was  a  very  bril- 
liant speech,  breathing  lofty  political  sentiments  that 
were  bound  to  make  John  W.  Underwood  votes. 
Also,  the  Reform  Club  indorsed  his  candidature. 

As  Underwood  leaned  against  the  greasy  wall  of 
the  little  hall  on  lower  Clark  Street  this  morning, 
the  whole  campaign  flashed  before  him,  just  as  the 
events  of  a  lifetime  are  said  in  books  to  flash  before 
the  mind  of  a  drowning  man.  He  recalled  every 
vivid  detail  of  the  call  Baldwin  had  made  upon  him, 
how  he  entered  his  private  office  without  troubling 
the  pale,  pimpled  office  boy  to  announce  him,  how 
he  lifted  from  his  carefully  parted  hair  his  straw  hat 
with  its  youthful  band  of  blue,  and  laughed  out, 


238  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"John,  my  boy,  how  are  you?  Hot,  isn't  it?"  He 
could  see  Baldwin  as  he  sat  in  the  solid  oak  chair 
that  stood  intimately  beside  his  roll-top  desk, 
fanning  his  ruddy  face  with  the  hat,  which  had 
impressed  a  broad  red  band  on  his  forehead.  Under- 
wood had  been  glad  enough  to  close  Cooley  on  Tax- 
ation and  revolve  his  chair  to  face  Baldwin,  just 
as  if  he  had  been  a  client,  for  Baldwin  was  the  most 
important  politician  who  had  ever  called  upon  him 
professionally. 

Underwood  remembered  clearly  how  Baldwin's 
excellent  teeth  glistened  when  he  smiled,  how  he 
lighted  a  Turkish  cigarette  and,  tilting  up  his  chin, 
blew  a  long,  airy  stream  of  blue  smoke  through  the 
thick  hairs  of  his  mustache.  He  could  even  remem- 
ber how  carefully  Baldwin  sheltered  the  flame  of  the 
match  for  Underwood's  cigarette,  in  that  curious 
spirit  of  economy  men  always  practice  with  regard 
to  matches,  much  as  if  there  were  only  one  match 
left  in  the  whole  world.  And  then  he  could  recall 
almost  word  for  word  their  conversation.  Bald- 
win had  frankly  told  him  that  Conway  had  him 
handicapped,  because  he  had  the  city  hall  with  him 
and  controlled  the  Fifth  Ward.  Simmons,  Baldwin 


REFORM    IN    THE    FIRST  239 

had  said,  didn't  cut  much  ice;  he  had  some  labor 
leaders  with  him,  and  would  get  a  bunch  of  dele- 
gates from  his  own  ward,  but  that  was  about  all.  In 
fact,  said  Baldwin,  concluding  his  judicial  summing 
up,  Conway  could  win  out,  hands  down,  if  it  were 
not  for  his  recent  quarrel  with  Malachi  Nolan.  Un- 
derwood remembered  that  during  all  this  frank- 
ness he  had  reflectively  drawn  rude  little  geometrical 
figures  on  an  envelope  and  had  been  somehow  afraid 
to  look  up  at  Baldwin,  for  the  noted  lobbyist  had 
sat  there  transfixing  him  with  an  eye  that  could  read 
the  mind  of  a  man  when  it  was  impinged  on  politics 
— that  is,  practical  politics — as  easily  as  it  could  a 
poker  hand  across  a  table  stacked  with  blue  chips. 
He  knew  Baldwin  had  come  with  some  practical 
proposition,  and  when  the  lobbyist  suggested  that  he 
was  too  respectable,  and  would  run  better  in  some 
residence  district,  that  the  boys  looked  upon  him  as 
a  reformer,  and  that  the  silk  stockings  were  not 
practical  enough  to  help  him,  Underwood  had  felt 
that  at  last  it  was  coming.  It  was  simple  enough. 
Baldwin  had  been  talking  that  very  morning  about 
Underwood's  candidature  to  Mr.  Weed  of  the 
Metropolitan  Motor  System,  and  to  Mr.  Peabody, 


240  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

president  of  the  Gas  Company,  and  they  had  been 
very  much  interested.  They  had  an  anxiety  to  see 
good  men  nominated  that  year,  for  they  had  large 
business  interests  that  were  more  or  less  affected  by 
legislation,  and  had  feared  they  would  have  to  settle 
on  Conway.  Conway  had  experience  in  legislative 
matters,  and  had  been  friendly  enough  in  the  city 
council,  yet  they  felt  they  could  hardly  trust  him — 
he  was  such  a  grafter,  and  in  such  things,  Baldwin 
blandly  assured  Underwood,  they  had  to  depend 
upon  a  man's  honor  alone,  and  so  they  had  sent 
Baldwin  to  suggest  that  Underwood  meet  them  at 
luncheon,  and  talk  matters  over.  Baldwin,  with  his 
love  of  ease  and  luxury,  had  preferred  a  dinner 
over  at  the  Cardinal's  in  the  evening,  but  Mr.  Pea- 
body  had  something  on  hand  with  the  trustees  of  his 
church  and  couldn't  meet  them  then.  Baldwin  had 
taken  out  his  watch  at  this  point,  with  the  air  of  a 
man  who  suddenly  remembers  some  important  en- 
gagement— the  details  all  came  back  with  a  fidelity 
that  was  painful — and  stood  awaiting  Underwood's 
reply,  with  the  open  watch  ticking  impatiently  in  his 
palm. 

Of    course,    Underwood    had    understood — and 


REFORM    IN    THE   FIRST  241 

he  wished  ardently  to  be  nominated  and  elected. 
He  could  see  himself  swinging  idly  in  a  big  chair 
behind  a  walnut  desk  in  the  senate  chamber,  just  as 
an  actor  sees  himself,  with  an  artist's  ecstatic,  half- 
frightened  gasp,  in  some  new  part  he  is  about  to 
study.  The  position  would  give  him  much  import- 
ance, he  would  be  riding  back  and  forth  between 
Chicago  and  Springfield  on  a  pass,  it  would  be  so 
pleasant  to  be  addressed  as  senator,  to  be  consulted, 
to  head  delegations  in  state  conventions  and  cast 
the  solid  vote  for  any  one  he  pleased;  besides,  it 
would  be  a  good  training  for  Washington,  he  could 
practise  in  oratory  and  parliamentary  law  just  as 
he  practised  on  friendless  paupers  over  in  the  crim- 
inal court  when  his  father  influenced  some  judge  to 
appoint  him  to  defend  an  indigent  prisoner.  It 
meant  only  one  little  word,  he  could  be  wary  of 
promises.  His  heart  had  expanded,  he  had  turned 
half  around  in  his  chair  to  face  Baldwin,  when 
suddenly  the  reformer  within  him  rose  to  object, 
pointed  to  his  ideals,  rehearsed  the  speech  on  The 
Tendencies  of  Modern  Politics,  recalled  all  the 
good  words  the  independent  papers  had  spoken  of 
him,  urged  the  beauty  of  great  sacrifices  for  prin- 


242  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

ciple.  At  the  idea  of  self-sacrifice,  Underwood  had 
felt  a  melting  self-pity,  he  admired  himself  in  this 
new  role  of  a  self-sacrificing  reformer.  And  so  he 
flung  the  cigarette  out  of  the  window,  watched  it 
whirl  down  to  the  melting  tar  of  the  roofs  below  and 
said  firmly: 

"I  have  an  engagement  this  morning,  Mr.  Bald- 
win. I'm  sorry,  but  I  guess  I  can't  come." 

Once  more  Underwood  saw  the  pleasantness  leave 
Baldwin's  face,  saw  him  fleck  a  flake  of  ash  from  the 
white  waistcoat  he  wore  with  his  summer  suit  of 
blue,  and  snapping  the  lid  of  his  watch  shut,  he  once 
more  heard  him  say  in  a  final  and  reproachful  tone : 

"Well,  all  right;  sorry,  my  boy." 

Underwood  wondered  that  morning  in  the  noisy 
convention  hall,  whether,  if  he  had  the  decision  to 
make  over  again,  he  would  decline  such  influence.  It 
had  been  the  cause  of  much  doubt  and  some  regret 
at  the  time.  The  boss  within  him  had  protested — 
surely  it  was  a  political  mistake — and  the  boss  was 
louder  than  the  reformer,  and  more  plausible.  He 
came  forward  with  a  brilliant  scheme.  He  recalled 
Baldwin's  reference  to  the  rivalry  between  Nolan 
and  Conway.  Underwood  remembered  that  when 


REFORM    IN    THE    FIRST  243 

he  suggested  the  possibility  of  Nolan's  running  for 
the  nomination  himself,  Baldwin  had  shaken  his 
head — there  wasn't  enough  in  it,  he  said.  Nolan 
could  do  very  much  better  in  the  council,  where  he 
was.  Besides,  Mr.  Weed  and  Mr.  Peabody  disliked 
him. 

Underwood  thought  out  his  scheme  that  after- 
noon, while  hunting  in  the  digest  for  cases  in  point 
to  be  cited  in  a  case  his  father  was  preparing  for 
the  appellate  court.  The  work  of  looking  up  cases 
in  point,  while  its  results  are  impressive  and  seem 
to  smell  of  the  lamp,  had  in  reality  grown  quite 
automatic  to  Underwood,  and  as  he  loafed  over  di- 
gests and  reports  and  jotted  down  his  notes,  he  elab- 
orated the  scheme,  just  what  he  would  say  and  do, 
how  he  would  appear,  and  so  forth.  And  so,  when 
he  entered  Malachi  Nolan's  place  in  Dearborn 
Street,  early  that  evening,  he  was  fully  prepared. 
The  details  of  this  incident  came  back  just  as  the  de- 
tails of  Baldwin's  visit  had  done — the  empty  saloon, 
the  alderman  himself  leaning  over  his  bar,  his  white 
apron  rolled  into  a  big  girth  about  his  middle,  the 
cigar  in  the  round  hole  at  the  corner  of  his  mouth 
gone  out,  denoting  that  it  was  time  for  him  to  go 


244  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

down  the  alley  to  Billy  Boyle's  and  get  his  porter- 
house and  baked  potato. 

Underwood  watched  Malachi  Nolan  mix  his 
Martini  cocktail,  splash  it  picturesquely  into  a 
sparkling  glass  and  bejewel  it  with  a  Maraschino 
cherry,  then  gravely  take  a  cigar  for  himself  and 
stow  it  away  in  his  ample  waistcoat.  Then,  as  Nolan 
mopped  the  bar  with  professional  sweep  of  his 
white-sleeved,  muscular  arm,  Underwood  unfolded 
his  brilliant  scheme,  skirting  carefully  the  acute  sus- 
picions of  an  old  politician.  But  Nolan  mopped, 
blinking  inscrutably,  at  last  putting  the  damp  cloth 
away  in  some  mysterious  place  under  the  counter. 
The  fat  Maltese  cat,  waiting  until  the  moisture  on 
the  bar  had  evaporated,  stretched  herself  again  be- 
side the  silver  urn  that  held  the  crackers  and  the  little 
cubes  of  cheese.  Still  Nolan  blinked  in  silence,  like  a 
hostile  jury  with  its  mind  made  up,  until  at  last,  in 
desperation,  Underwood  blurted  out  his  proposition. 
Nolan  blinked  some  more,  then,  half  opening  his 
blue  Irish  eyes,  grunted : 

"Well,  I  like  your  gall." 

Underwood's  spirits  fell,  yet  he  was  not  disap- 
pointed. It  was,  after  all,  just  what  he  had  expected. 


REFORM    IN    THE    FIRST  245 

It  served  him  right  for  his  presumption,  if  nothing 
more — though  the  subdued  reformer  within  had 
hinted  at  other  reasons.  He  hung  his  head,  twirling 
his  empty  glass  disconsolately.  He  did  not  see  the 
light  that  twinkled  in  the  blue  eyes,  he  had  not  then 
known  how  very  ready  Nolan  was  to  form  any  com- 
bination that  would  beat  Conway  and  Baldwin,  espe- 
cially with  a  reformer  like  himself  who  had  money 
to  spend  on  his  ambitions.  He  had  not  discerned 
how  badly  the  man  whom  the  newspapers  always 
cartooned  with  the  First  Ward  sticking  out  of  his 
vest  pocket,  needed  a  reformer  in  his  business,  as 
the  saying  is.  Hence  his  glad  surprise  when  Nolan 
wiped  his  big  hand  on  his  apron  like  a  washer- 
woman and  held  it  out,  saying : 

"But  I'm  wit'  ye." 

Then  the  campaign,  under  Nolan's  management, 
in  the  most  wonderful  legislative  district — a  cosmo- 
politan district,  bristling  with  sociological  problems, 
a  district  that  has  fewer  homes  and  more  saloons, 
more  commerce  and  more  sloth,  more  millionaires 
and  more  paupers,  and  while  it  confines  within  its 
boundaries  the  skyscrapers,  clubs,  theaters  and  hun- 
dred churches  of  a  metropolis,  still  boasts  a  police 


246  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

station  with  more  arrests  on  its  blotter  than  any 
other  in  the  world.  Night  after  night,  with  Nolan's 
two  candidates  for  the  house,  he  spent  in  saloons 
where  a  candidate  must  treat  and  distribute  his  cards 
that  the  boys  may  size  him  up;  lodging  houses  and 
barrel  houses  in  lower  Clark  Street,  where  sweating 
negroes  and  frowsy  whites  drank  five-cent  whisky 
with  him;  blazing  saloons  along  the  levee,  where 
even  the  poor,  painted  girls  at  the  tables  lifted  their 
glasses  when  he  ordered  the  drinks  for  the  house; 
crap  games  and  policy  shops  in  lower  Clark  Street, 
the  Syrian,  Arabic,  Chinese  and  Italian  quarters 
down  by  the  squalid  Bad  Lands,  and  at  last  a  hap- 
pier evening  along  the  Archey  Road.  Underwood 
had  three  weeks  of  this,  and  as  he  stood  in  the  con- 
vention hall  that  morning,  unwashed,  unshaven,  his 
linen  soiled,  his  shoes  muddy,  his  own  friends  would 
not  have  known  him,  though  he  cared  little  enough 
for  this  now — they  had  all  forgotten  to  go  to  the 
primaries  the  day  before,  and  those  for  whom  he 
had  sent  carriages  had  been  too  busy,  or  too  respect- 
able, to  respond.  The  taste  of  bad  beer  and  the 
scorch  of  cheap  cigars  still  smacked  in  his  mouth — 
indeed,  he  did  not  get  them  entirely  out  until  he 


REFORM    IN    THE    FIRST  247 

came  back  from  Mt.  Clemens  two  weeks  after  the 
nomination. 

But  they  were  balloting  for  permanent  chairman 
now.  It  would  be  a  test  vote;  it  would  disclose  his 
own  strength  and  the  strength  of  Conway.  He 
looked  over  the  red  faces  before  him.  He  saw  Con- 
way  himself  moving  among  the  delegates,  snarling, 
cursing,  quarreling  with  the  friends  of  years;  he 
saw  Conway's  candidate  for  the  house,  McGlone, 
over  in  the  Second  Ward  delegation,  his  coat  off,  a 
handkerchief  about  his  fat  neck,  a  fuming  cigar  be- 
tween his  chubby  fingers,  turning  on  his  heavy 
haunches  to  revile  some  man  who  was  numbered 
with  Nolan's  crowd ;  he  saw  in  the  First  Ward  dele- 
gation, Malachi  Nolan,  clean-shaven,  in  black  coat 
and  cravat,  his  iron  gray  hair  cropped  short,  calm 
alone  of  all  the  others.  He  would  have  looked  the 
priest  more  than  the  saloon-keeper,  had  he  smoked 
his  cigar  differently.  Now  and  then  he  solemnly 
raised  his  hand,  with  almost  the  benediction  of  a 
father,  to  still  the  clamor  of  his  delegation,  which, 
with  its  twenty-one  votes,  was  safe  at  all  events  for 
Underwood. 

Muldoon  was  Conway's  man — they  would  try  to 


248  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

make  the  temporary  organization  permanent.  D'Or- 
mand  was  Underwood's  candidate.  And  Muldoon 
won.  Underwood  had  lost  the  first  round. 

The  candidates  for  senator  were  to  be  placed  in 
nomination  first.  Underwood  stood  in  the  crowded 
doorway  and  heard  Conway's  name  presented. 
Then,  in  the  cheering,  with  his  heart  in  his  sanded 
throat,  he  heard  the  chairman  say : 

"Are  there  any  other  nominations  ?" 

There  was  a  momentary  stillness,  and  then  he 
heard  a  thick,  strong  voice : 

"Misther  Chairman!" 

"The  gentleman  from  the  First  Ward." 

"Misther  Chairman,"  the  thick,  strong  voice  said, 
"I  roise  to  place  in  nomynation  the  name  of  wan — " 

It  was  the  voice  of  Malachi  Nolan,  and  Under- 
wood suddenly  remembered  that  Nolan  was  to  place 
his  name  before  the  convention.  He  listened  an 
instant,  but  could  not  endure  it  long.  He  could  not 
endure  that  men  should  see  him  in  the  hour  when 
his  name  was  being  thus  laid  naked  to  the  world. 
Reporters  were  writing  it  down,  perhaps  the  crowd 
would  laugh  or  whistle  or  hiss.  Besides,  candidates 
do  not  remain  in  the  convention  hall ;  they  await  the 


REFORM    IN    THE    FIRST  249 

committee  of  notification  in  some  near-by  saloon. 
He  squeezed  through  the  mass  of  men  who  stood  on 
tiptoes,  stretching  their  necks  to  see  and  hear  the  old 
leader  of  the  First  Ward,  and  fled. 

The  first  ballot  was  taken — Conway,  31 ;  Under- 
wood, 30;  Simmons,  the  dark  horse,  8;  necessary 
to  a  choice,  35.  The  vote  was  unchanged  for 
twenty-six  ballots,  till  the  afternoon  had  worn  away, 
and  the  trucks  had  jolted  off  the  cobblestones  of 
Clark  Street,  till  the  lights  were  flaring  and  hot 
tamale  men,  gamblers,  beggars,  street  walkers,  all 
the  denizens  of  darkness  were  shifting  along  the 
sidewalks,  till  the  policemen  had  been  changed  on 
their  beats,  and  Pinkerton  night  watchmen  were 
trying  the  doors  of  stores,  till  Chinamen  shuffled 
forth,  and  Jewesses  and  Italian  women  emerged  for 
their  evening  breath  of  air,  bringing  swart  and 
grimy  children  to  play  upon  the  heated  flags.  The 
hall  was  lighted,  just  as  if  some  Italian  festival  were 
to  be  held  there.  The  reporters'  places  at  the  table 
were  taken  by  the  men  who  did  politics  for  the 
morning  papers,  themselves  reduced  at  last  to  the 
necessity  of  taking  notes.  They  brought  reports  of 
the  results  in  other  senatorial  conventions  held  about 


250  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

town  that  day — it  seemed  to  be  assured  that  John 
Skelley  had  carried  the  country  towns,  Lemont, 
Riverside,  Evanston,  and  so  on.  In  certain  west  side 
districts  this  man  had  won,  in  certain  north  side  dis- 
tricts that  man  had  been  successful.  It  looked  as  if 
the  old  gang  was  going  to  break  back  into  the  legis- 
lature. 

And  so  the  interest  in  this  one  remaining 
convention  deepened,  the  strain  tightened,  the  crowd 
thickened.  The  delegates,  tired  and  sullen,  shed 
their  waistcoats,  tore  off  their  moist  and  dirty  col- 
lars and  settled  down  to  an  angry  fight.  The  amphi- 
theatrical  arrangement  of  the  chairs  had  long  been 
broken.  The  ward  delegations  now  formed  circles 
about  their  leaders.  The  damp  arabesques  wrought 
by  the  janitor's  superficial  sprinkling-can  had  long 
since  been  superseded  by  arabesques  of  tobacco 
juice.  The  floor  was  littered  with  scraps  of  paper, 
the  spent  ballots  with  which  the  stubborn  contest  had 
been  waged.  The  First  Ward  delegation  was  in  a 
solid  ring,  and  in  the  center  of  it  sat  Malachi  Nolan, 
his  elbows  on  his  knees,  tearing  old  ballots  into  tiny 
specks  of  paper  and  strewing  them  on  the  floor,  but 
keeping  all  the  while  a  surveying  eye  on  the  Fifth 


REFORM    IN    THE    FIRST  251 

Ward  delegation,  now  divided  into  two  groups,  one 
of  which  surrounded  Howe,  the  other  huddling 
about  Grogan,  the  lawyer,  who,  with  disheveled  hair, 
a  handkerchief  about  his  neck,  stood  glaring  angrily 
at  Nolan,  his  eyes  shadowed  by  heavy  circles  telling 
of  weariness  and  the  strain. 

Now  and  then  the  leaders  made  desperate  at- 
tempts to  trade,  harrying  Simmons,  offering  him 
everything  for  his  seven  votes.  Simmons  himself,  in 
his  turn,  tried  to  induce  each  faction  to  swing  its 
strength  to  him. 

But  the  situation  remained  unchanged. 

Once  Nolan  sent  for  Underwood  and  whispered 
to  him.  He  thought  he  knew  one  or  two  Conway 
men  who  could  be  got  very  cheaply,  but  the  boy 
shook  his  head — the  reformer  within  him  demurred 
— and  yet  he  smiled  sardonically  at  the  reformer 
thinking  of  the  primaries  and  the  convention  itself. 

Then  Malachi  Nolan  caught  the  chairman's  shifty 
eye  and  moved  an  adjournment  until  morning.  But 
even  as  he  spoke,  Grogan  scowled  at  Muldoon, 
shook  his  head  at  his  followers,  and  the  room  rang 
with  their  hoarse  shouts : 
"No!  no!  no!" 


252  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

Heartened  by  this  confession  of  weakness  on  No- 
lan's part,  they  kept  on  yelling  lustily : 

"No!  no!  no!" 

They  even  laughed,  and  Muldoon  smote  the  table, 
to  declare  the  motion  lost. 

On  the  forty-seventh  ballot,  one  of  the  Simmons 
votes  went  over  to  Conway,  and  there  was  a  faint 
cheer.  On  the  forty-eighth,  one  of  the  Simmons 
votes  went  to  Underwood,  and  parity  was  restored. 
On  the  forty-ninth,  Underwood  gained  another  of 
Simmons'  votes — Nolan,  it  seemed,  had  promised  to 
get  him  on  the  janitor's  pay-roll  in  the  state  house — 
and  the  vote  was  tied.  This  ballot  stood : 

First  Second  Fifth 

Ward  Ward  Ward  Total 

Conway —  10  22  32 

Underwood 21  4               7  32 

Simmons   —  5  • —  5 

The  Simmons  men  were  holding  out,  waiting  to 
throw  their  strength  to  the  winner.  When  the 
sixty-seventh  ballot  had  been  taken,  Muldoon, 
squinting  in  the  miserable  light,  at  the  secretary's 
figures,  hit  the  table  with  the  chair  leg  and  said : 

"On  this  ballot  Conway  receives  32,  Underwood 


REFORM    IN    THE    FIRST  253 

32,  Simmons  5.  There  being  no  choice,  you  will 
prepare  your  ballots  for  another  vote." 

Just  then  one  of  the  Conway  men  from  the  Sec- 
ond Ward  left  his  place,  and  touched  one  of  Nolan's 
fellows  in  the  First  Ward  delegation — Donahue — 
on  the  shoulder.  Donahue  started.  The  man  whis- 
pered in  his  ear,  and  returned  to  his  delegation,  keep- 
ing his  eye  on  Donahue.  Underwood  looked  on 
breathlessly.  Nolan,  revolving  slowly,  held  his  hat 
for  every  vote — last  of  all  for  Donahue's.  The  man 
dropped  his  folded  ballot  into  the  hat  and  hung  his 
head.  Nolan  calmly  picked  the  ballot  out  of  the  hat 
and  gave  it  back  to  Donahue,  who  looked  up  in  af- 
fected surprise. 

"What's  the  trouble,  Malachi?"  he  said  as  inno- 
cently as  he  could.  He  was  not  much  of  an  actor. 

"This  won't  do,"  Nolan  said,  giving  the  ballot 
back  to  the  man. 

"It's  all  right,  Malachi,  honest  to  God  it  is !"  pro- 
tested Donahue. 

"Thin  I'll  just  put  this  wan  in  for  ye,  heh?"  said 
Nolan,  drawing  another  ballot  from  the  pocket  of 
his  huge  waistcoat  and  poising  it  above  the  hat. 

The  crowd  had  pressed  around  the  First  Ward 


254  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

delegation.  The  convention  had  risen  to  its  feet,  cran- 
ing red  necks,  and  out  of  the  mass,  Grogan  cried : 

"Aw,  here,  Malachi  Nolan,  none  o'  that  now !" 

Nolan  turned  his  rugged  face  toward  him  and 
said  simply : 

"Who's  runnin'  this  dillygation,  you  or  me?" 

"Well — none  o'  your  bulldozing — we  won't  stand 
it!"  replied  Grogan  angrily,  his  blue  eyes  blazing. 

"You  get  to  hell  out  o'  this."  And  so  saying, 
Nolan  dropped  the  ballot  into  the  hat  and  turned  to 
face  the  chair. 

"Have  you  all  voted?"  inquired  Muldoon. 

"First  Ward !"  the  secretary  called. 

Nolan  squared  his  shoulders,  not  having  looked 
in  his  hat  or  counted  the  ballots  there,  and  said 
slowly  and  impressively: 

"On  behalf  av  the  solid  dillygation  av  the  First 
Ward,  I  cast  twinty-wan  votes  for  John  W.  Under- 
wood." 

"Misther  Chairman!  Misther  Chairman!"  cried 
Grogan,  waving  his  hand  in  the  air,  "I  challenge  that 
vote !  I  challenge  that  vote !" 

"The  gentleman  from  the  Fifth  Ward  challenges 
the  vote — " 


REFORM    IN    THE    FIRST  255 

"Misther  Chairman,"  said  Nolan,  standing  with 
one  heavy  foot  on  his  chair  and  leveling  a  forefinger 
at  Muldoon,  "a  point  of  order!  The  gintleman  from 
the  Fifth  Ward  has  no  right  to  challenge  the  vote 
av  the  First  Ward — he's  not  a  mimber  of  the  dilly- 
gation !" 

"Let  the  First  Ward  be  polled,"  calmly  ruled  Mul- 
doon. Nolan  took  his  foot  from  his  chair  and 
stepped  to  Donahue's  side.  Every  man  in  the  First 
Ward  delegation,  as  his  name  was  called  from  the 
credentials,  cried  "Underwood!"  As  the  secretary 
neared  the  name  of  Donahue,  Nolan  laid  his  hand 
heavily  on  the  fellow's  shoulder. 

"Donahue !"  called  the  secretary. 

The  fellow  squirmed  under  Nolan's  hand. 

"Donahue!" 

"Don't  let  him  bluff  you!"  cried  some  one  from 
the  Fifth  Ward. 

"Vote  as  you  damn  please,  Jimmie !" 

"T'row  the  boots  into  'im,  Donnie!" 

"Soak  him  one!" 

"Take  your  hands  off  him,  Bull  Nolan !" 

So  they  bawled  and  Donahue  wriggled.  But  the 
hand  of  Nolan,  like  the  hand  of  Douglas,  was  his 


256  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

own,  and  gripped  fast.  Grogan,  his  face  red,  his 
eyes  on  fire,  leaped  from  his  place  in  his  delegation, 
and  started  across  the  chairs  for  Nolan.  The  big 
saloon-keeper  gave  him  a  look  out  of  his  little  eye. 
His  left  shoulder  dipped,  his  left  fist  tightened.  Gro- 
gan halted. 

"Vote,  Jimmie,  me  lad,"  said  Nolan,  in  a  soft 
voice. 

"Underwood !"  said  Donahue,  in  a  whisper.  His 
weak,  pinched,  hungry  face  turned  appealingly 
toward  Grogan.  His  blear  eyes  were  filmy  with  dis- 
appointment. 

"He  votes  for  John  W.  Underwood,  Misther 
Chairman,"  said  Nolan  complacently.  The  vote 
was  unchanged.  The  chairman  ordered  another 
ballot. 

And  then,  all  at  once,  as  if  a  breath  from  a  sanded 
desert  had  been  blown  into  the  room,  Underwood 
was  sensible  of  a  change  in  the  atmosphere.  The  air 
was  perhaps  no  hotter  than  it  had  been  for  hours  at 
the  close  of  that  stifling  day,  no  bluer  with  tobacco 
smoke,  no  heavier  with  the  smell  borne  in  from 
Clark  Street  on  hot  night  winds  that  had  started 
cool  and  fresh  from  the  lake  four  blocks  away,  a 


REFORM    IN    THE    FIRST  257 

smell  compounded  of  many  smells,  the  smell  ascend- 
ing from  foul  and  dark  cellars  beneath  the  sidewalk, 
the  smell  of  stale  beer,  the  ammoniac  smell  of  filthy 
pavements,  mingled  with  the  feculence  of  unclean 
bodies  that  had  sweated  for  hours  in  the  vitiated 
air  of  that  low-ceilinged,  crowded  room.  It  had 
a  strange  moral  density  that  oppressed  him,  that 
oppressed  all,  even  the  politicians,  for  they  ceased 
from  cursing  and  from  speech,  and  now  sat  sullen, 
silent,  suspiciously  eying  their  companions.  It  was 
an  atmosphere  charged  with  some  ominous  forebod- 
ing, some  awful  fear.  Underwood  had  never  felt 
that  atmosphere  before,  yet,  with  a  gasp  that  came 
not  as  an  effect  of  the  heat,  he  recognized  its  mean- 
ing. 

A  hush  fell.  Muldoon,  his  black,  curly  locks  shin- 
ing with  perspiration,  was  leaning  on  his  improvised 
gavel,  his  keen  eye,  the  Irish  eye  that  so  readily 
seizes  such  situations,  darting  into  every  face  before 
him. 

And  suddenly  came  that  for  which  they  were 
waiting.  A  man  entered  the  hall  and  strode  straight 
across  the  floor  into  the  Fifth  Ward  delegation,  into 
the  group  where  the  Underwood  men  were  clustered 


258  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

about  their  leader.  He  wore  evening  clothes,  his 
black  dinner-coat  and  white  shirt  bosom  striking  a 
vivid  note  in  the  scene.  He  walked  briskly,  but  his 
mind  was  so  intent  upon  his  pose  that  it  was  not 
until  he  had  removed  his  cigarette  from  his  lips  and 
had  observed  Underwood,  that  his  white  teeth 
showed  beneath  his  reddish  mustache  in  the  well- 
known  smile  of  George  R.  Baldwin.  He  elbowed 
his  way  into  the  very  midst  of  the  Underwood  men 
from  the  Fifth  Ward,  and  leading  one  of  them 
aside,  talked  with  him  an  instant,  and  then  returned 
him,  as  it  were,  to  his  place  in  the  delegation.  Then 
he  brought  forth  another,  whispered  to  him  for  an 
earnest  moment,  and  sent  him  back,  with  a  smile  and 
a  slap  on  the  shoulder.  The  third  delegate  detained 
him  longer,  and  once,  as  he  argued  with  him,  the 
slightest  shade  of  displeasure  crossed  Baldwin's 
face,  but  in  an  instant  the  smile  replaced  it,  and  he 
talked — convincingly,  it  seemed.  Before  Baldwin 
returned  this  man  to  his  delegation,  he  shook  hands 
with  him. 

The  secretary  was  calling  the  wards,  and  Nolan 
had  announced  the  result  in  his  delegation.  The 
Fifth  Ward  was  a  long  while  in  preparing  its  bal- 


REFORM    IN    THE   FIRST  259 

lots.  There  was  trouble  of  some  sort  there,  among 
the  Underwood  men.  Nolan  was  urging,  expostu- 
lating, cursing,  commanding.  The  air  was  tense. 
It  seemed  to  Underwood  that  it  must  inevitably  be 
shattered  by  some  moral  cataclysm  in  the  soul  of 
man.  Grogan's  brow  was  knit,  as  he  waited,  hat  in 
hand.  The  delegates  voted.  Feverishly,  with 
trembling  ringers,  Grogan  opened  and  counted  the 
bits  of  paper.  Then  he  sprang  to  his  feet,  with  a 
wild,  glad  light  in  his  face. 

"Mister  Chairman!"  he  cried,  "the  Fifth  Ward 
casts  twenty-five  votes  for  Conway  and  four  for 
Underwood !" 

The  three  bolters  in  the  Fifth  Ward  delegation 
sat  with  defiance  in  their  faces,  but  they  could  not 
sustain  the  expression,  even  by  huddling  close  to- 
gether. They  broke  for  the  door,  wriggling  their 
way  through  masses  of  men,  who  made  their  pas- 
sage uncertain,  almost  perilous.  A  billow  of  ap- 
plause broke  from  the  Conway  men,  and  submerged 
the  convention.  Delegates  all  over  the  hall  were  on 
their  feet,  clamoring  for  recognition,  but  Malachi 
Nolan's  voice  boomed  heavily  above  all  other  voices 
His  fist  was  in  the  air  above  all  other  fists. 


260  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

"Misther  Chairman !"  he  yelled,  "I  challenge  that 
vote!" 

"Misther  Chairman!"  yelled  Grogan,  "a  point  of 
order !  The  gentleman  isn't  a  member  of  the  Fifth 
Ward  delegation  and  can  not  challenge  its  vote!" 

"The  point  of  order  is  well  taken,"  promptly  ruled 
the  chair.  "The  gentleman  from  the  First  Ward  is 
out  of  order — he  will  take  his  seat." 

Men  were  screaming,  brandishing  fists,  waving 
hats,  coats,  anything,  scraping  chairs,  pounding  the 
floor  with  them.  There  were  heavy,  brutal  oaths, 
and,  here  and  there,  the  smack  of  a  fist  on  a  face. 
In  the  tumult,  the  five  Simmons  votes  went  to  Con- 
way.  Muldoon  was  beating  the  table  with  his  club 
and  crying : 

"Order!  order!  order!" 

"To  hell  with  order!"  bawled  some  one  from  the 
First  Ward  delegation. 

"On  this  ballot,"  Muldoon  was  calling,  "there 
were  sixty-nine  votes  cast;  necessary  to  a  choice, 
thirty-five.  James  P.  Conway  has  received  forty 
votes;  John  W.  Underwood,  twenty-nine,  and 
George  W.  Simmons" — he  paused,  as  if  to  decipher 
the  vote — "none.  James  R.  Conway,  having  re- 


REFORM    IN    THE    FIRST  261 

ceived  the  necessary  number  of  votes,  is  therefore 
declared  the  nominee  of  this  convention." 

Underwood  was  stunned.  He  staggered  through 
the  horrible  uproar  toward  the  door.  He  longed  for 
the  air  outside,  even  the  heavy  air  of  lower  Clark 
street,  where  the  people  surged  along  under  the  wild, 
dazzling  lights,  in  two  opposite,  ever-passing  pro- 
cessions. His  head  reeled.  He  lost  the  sense  of 
things,  the  voices  about  him  seemed  far  away  and 
vague,  he  felt  himself  detached,  as  it  were,  from  all 
that  had  gone  before.  But  as  he  pressed  his  way 
through  the  crowd  that  blocked  the  entrance,  and 
plunged  toward  the  stairs,  he  saw  Baldwin,  mopping 
the  red  band  on  his  white  brow.  Baldwin  recognized 
him,  and  said,  with  his  everlasting  smile : 

"Sorry,  my  boy — next  time!" 


MALACHI  NOLAN 

i 

MALACHI  NOLAN  sat  by  the  roll-top  desk 
in  the  front  window  of  his  saloon.  The  desk 
was  unopened,  for  Malachi  seldom  had  occasion  to 
use  it.  The  only  letters  he  ever  wrote  were  to 
whisky  houses  in  Peoria  or  Louisville,  and  then  the 
process  was  a  painful  one.  His  mighty  haunches 
completely  filled  the  chair,  which,  in  turn,  completely 
filled  the  space  railed  off  in  front  of  the  partition 
that  screened  the  bar.  The  saloon  was  in  a  basement 
in  Dearborn  Street,  and,  to  get  to  it,  you  had  to  go 
down  four  stone  steps,  hollowed  by  countless  feet 
in  the  long  years  he  had  kept  there.  Outside,  over 
the  door,  a  long,  black  sign  bore  his  simple  device 
— M.  Nolan. 

Malachi  Nolan  sat  with  his  back  to  the  window. 
His  cropped  gray  hair  showed  his  red  scalp,  the  hard 

262 


MALACHI    NOLAN  263 

red  skin  on  his  face  was  closely  shaven  and  shone 
on  the  points  of  his  heavy  jaw.  In  the  round  hole 
at  the  corner  of  his  broad  mouth  was  one  of  the  long 
succession  of  cigars  that  had  worn  away  the  hole, 
sending  up  its  perpetual  incense.  He  never  removed 
the  cigar  and  seldom  puffed  it.  It  seemed  to  smoke 
of  its  own  volition,  and  lasted  a  long  time.  When 
it  consumed  itself,  Malachi  replaced  it  with  another. 
No  one  had  ever  seen  him  without  a  cigar  in  that 
hole  at  the  side  of  his  mouth.  When  he  moved  his 
thin  lips  to  speak  the  cigar  would  stand  out  rigidly 
between  his  teeth.  He  spoke  with  his  teeth  clenched. 
He  was  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  and  his  shirt  was  clean 
and  fresh,  for  he  changed  his  linen  daily,  just  as 
he  shaved  himself,  relentlessly,  every  morning  with 
a  dull  razor.  On  his  glossy  shirt  front  a  great  dia- 
mond, four  carats  in  weight,  sparkled  leisurely  as 
his  enormous  chest  slowly  rose  and  fell  with  his 
heavy  breathing.  This  diamond  was  the  central 
jewel  of  his  alderman's  gold  star,  presented  by  con- 
stituents years  before.  The  setting  was  so  contrived 
that  the  stone  could  be  unscrewed  and  made  to 
serve  as  a  stud.  Malachi  seldom  wore  the  star, 
unless  he  went  to  a  fire,  or  to  a  prize-fight  across  the 


264  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

Indiana  line,  or  to  the  Olympic  Theater,  or  got 
drunk. 

As  he  sat  there  in  his  warm  saloon  on  this  raw 
March  morning,  Malachi  read  his  paper,  read  it 
carefully  and  slowly,  first  the  front  page,  column 
after  column,  then  the  second  page,  and  so  on, 
methodically,  through  all  the  pages,  except  the  edi- 
torials, which  he  skipped.  His  lips  moved  slightly 
as  he  read,  for  he  had  to  pronounce  the  words  to 
himself  in  order  to  get  their  full  meaning.  He  read 
his  paper  thus  every  morning  of  his  life,  and  his 
paper  was  all  he  ever  did  read. 

Malachi  sat  this  morning,  as  on  every  other  morn- 
ing of  the  year,  heavy,  imponderable  and  solemn. 
The  hour  was  ten  o'clock.  It  was  too  early  for  busi- 
ness to  begin  in  that  saloon,  so  that  the  old  bartender, 
who  had  been  with  Malachi  for  fifteen  years,  sat 
with  his  apron  in  his  lap,  against  the  whisky  barrels 
that  reached  in  rows  from  the  slot  machine  back  to 
the  wooden  stalls  where  many  a  campaign  in  the 
city  council  had  been  planned  and  its  victory  cele- 
brated. The  bartender  was  likewise  reading  a  paper, 
the  sporting  news  chiefly  claiming  his  attention.  By 
noon,  aldermen  and  city  hall  employees  would  begin 


MALACHI    NOLAN  265 

to  drop  in,  and  the  place  would  liven  up,  but  now 
the  monotonous  ticking  of  the  Western  Union  clock 
on  the  wall  could  be  heard  all  over  the  long  room, 
and  the  big  Maltese  cat  snoozed  lazily  at  one  end  of 
the  bar. 

Malachi  was  not  feeling  as  well  as  usual  this 
morning,  though  his  exterior  was  as  clean  and  calm 
as  ever.  A  fever  burned  beneath  his  great  waistcoat, 
and  on  coming  down  he  had  drunk  a  bottle  of  min- 
eral water.  The  truth  is,  that  the  night  before, 
Malachi  had  so  far  departed  from  the  habit  of  his 
methodical  life  as  to  drink  much  whisky,  a  thing  he 
had  not  done  for  years,  ever  since  the  occasion,  in 
fact,  when  celebrating  a  reelection  to  the  council, 
he  had  drunk  so  much  that  he  was  constrained  to 
enter  a  barber  shop  in  State  Street,  and  terrorize  the 
barbers  by  sticking  all  the  razors  in  the  floor,  like  a 
juggler  he  had  seen  playing  with  knives  in  a  theater. 
The  gang  had  been  in  the  saloon  until  three  o'clock 
that  morning.  They  had  just  passed  an  ordinance 
granting  a  new  franchise  to  the  Metropolitan  Motor 
Company,  and  in  one  of  the  walnut  stalls  the  bundle 
had  been  cut,  as  the  phrase  is.  The  gang  had  grown 
so  hilarious,  as  it  always  did  on  such  occasions,  that 


266  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

it  had  proposed  a  song  by  Malachi.  Now,  in  his 
younger  days,  Malachi  had  been  a  great  lad  for  song, 
and  many  a  shindig  in  Bridgeport  had  he  gladdened 
with  his  voice,  but  in  the  latter  years  it  was  seldom 
that  he  could  be  induced  to  exercise  it.  He  would 
always  plead  his  age  and  his  flesh,  and  such  was  the 
solemnity  of  manner  that  had  grown  upon  him  with 
the  years,  that  men  in  their  sober  hours  never  had 
the  temerity  to  suggest  anything  so  unbecoming  his 
dignity.  But  on  this  night,  heated  by  wine,  and 
feeling,  though  they  did  not  of  course  analyze  the 
feeling,  that  so  many  improprieties  had  been  com- 
mitted that  one  more  could  not  noticeably  swell  the 
score,  they  had  been  emboldened  to  demand  a  song. 
Malachi,  standing  by  his  own  bar  in  his  long  frock 
coat  and  square-crowned  stiff  hat,  twiddling  his 
whisky  glass  just  as  if  he  were  a  casual  visitor  there, 
had  resolutely  shaken  his  head.  But  at  two  o'clock 
in  the  morning  he  had  suddenly  ordered  the  drinks 
for  the  house,  and  then,  when  the  gang  had  given 
over  all  hope  of  his  singing,  save,  perhaps,  one  or 
two  who,  deeper  in  their  cups  than  the  rest,  had 
monotonously  persisted  in  the  invitation,  he  had 
spontaneously  burst  forth : 


MALACHI    NOLAN  267 

"Oh,  Paddy,  dear,  and  did  you  hear  the  news  that's 

going  round  ? 
The  shamrock  is  forbid  by  law  to  grow  on  Irish 

ground. 
St.  Patrick's  day  no  more  we'll  keep,  his  colors  can't 

be  seen, 
For  there's  a  bloody  law  ag'in  the  wearin'  of  the 

green. 
I  met  with  Nappe  r  Tandy,  and  he  took  me  by  the 

hand, 
And  he  said,  'How's  poor  old  Ireland,  and  how  does 

she  stand  ?' ' 

And  then  the  gang,  unable  to  hold  its  enthusiasm, 
bellowed  in  chorus  with  the  sadly  cracked  voice, 
which,  nevertheless,  retained  the  true  old  Irish  lilt: 

"She's  the  most  distressful  country  that  ever  yet 

was  seen, 
They  are  hangin'  men  and  women  for  the  wearin'  of 

the  green." 

They  had  sung  it  over  and  over,  prolonging  to  a 
greater  extent  with  each  repetition  the  high  note 
upon  which  in  the  song  the  word  "men"  falls.  Once 
in  tune,  it  was  not  so  difficult  to  get  Malachi  to  sing 
other  songs,  and  he  gave  them,  with  the  genuine 
flavor  of  the  old  sod,  Garryoiven.  The  gang  be- 
came uproarious  when  he  reached  the  stanza : 


268  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Johnny  Connell's  tall  and  straight, 
And  in  his  limbs  he  is  complate, 
He'll  pitch  a  bar  of  any  weight 
From  Garryowen  to  Thomond  gate." 

But  the  climax  was  reached  when  Malachi  was 
at  last  induced  to  sing  The  Night  Before  Larry 
Was  Stretched.  This  had  taken  time  and  diplo- 
macy, for  the  more  popular  the  song,  the  more  diffi- 
cult it  was  to  prevail  upon  him  to  sing  it,  though  at 
last  he  yielded,  and  the  gang  restrained  itself  as 
he  began : 

"The   night  before   Larry  was   stretched, 
The  boys  they  all  paid  him  a  visit, 

A  bit  in  their  sacks  too  they  fetched, 
They  sweated  their  duds  till  they  riz  it : 

For  Larry  was  always  the  lad, 

When    a    friend    was    condemned    to    the 
squeezer, 

But  he'd  fence  all  the  togs  that  he  had 
Just  to  help  the  poor  boy  to  a  sneezer, 
And  moisten  his  gob  'fore  he  died." 

The  lagging  last  line  was  too  much,  and  in  their 
mad  delight  they  began  to  pound  Malachi  familiarly 
on  the  back.  And  then  he  froze  stiffly,  drew  himself 
up,  ordered  his  cab  and  went  home,  and  the  song 
was  never  finished. 


MALACHI    NOLAN  269 

But  now  that  morning  had  come  and  reason  had 
returned  with  the  light,  he  felt  a  chagrin  at  having 
suffered  such  a  lapse  in  his  dignity,  and  such  a  break 
in  the  resolution  of  years,  and  so  was  more  solemn 
than  ever. 

When  Malachi  had  read  to  the  last  line  of  the 
last  column  of  the  last  page  of  his  newspaper,  he  did 
not  fold  it  and  lay  it  aside  as  he  did  every  other 
morning  of  the  year.  He  turned  to  the  first  page 
and  studied  the  picture  there.  It  was  the  daily  car- 
toon, and  the  central  figure  was  intended  for  Mala- 
chi himself.  That  there  could  be  no  question  of 
identity,  the  prudent  artist  had  labeled  it  "Bull 
Nolan."  The  figure  was  one  that  Malachi  had  seen 
in  the  newspapers  in  varying  situations  for  years, 
and  the  aldermanic  paunch,  with  massive  chain  and 
charm,  the  bullet  head,  with  its  stubble  of  hair  and 
bell-crowned  hat,  the  checked  and  braided  clothes, 
the  broad-soled  shoes  and  checkered  spats,  the 
briskly  radiating  lines  to  symbolize  his  diamond, 
were  supposed  to  embody  the  popular  conception 
of  the  alderman's  personality.  The  inevitable  cigar 
had  fallen  and  lay  fuming  at  his  feet,  the  eyes  and 
mouth  gaped  in  palpable  fear,  and  with  a  fat  hand 


270  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

flashing  other  diamonds,  this  counterfeit  present- 
ment of  Malachi  Nolan  was  trying  to  protect  the 
First  Ward — peeping  on  a  ballot  from  his  waistcoat 
pocket — from  a  gentleman  with  high  hat,  side 
whiskers,  gloves  and  cane,  who,  labeled  "Citizen," 
obviously  impersonated  the  better  element.  The 
point  of  the  cartoon  was  that  the  Municipal  Reform 
League  had  resolved  that  Malachi  Nolan  be  retired 
from  public  life.  The  League  had  had  a  banquet, 
and  the  speeches  had  breathed  a  zeal  of  reform  such 
as  only  champagne  and  truffles  can  inspire.  The 
resolutions  rang  like  a  declaration  of  independence ; 
if  the  reform  candidate,  a  gentleman  of  prominent 
probity,  were  beaten  in  regular  convention,  they 
would  nominate  him  by  petition. 

Malachi  studied  the  cartoon  a  long  time,  never 
changing  expression,  and  when  he  finished,  he 
folded  the  paper  carefully  and  laid  it  on  his  desk, 
bestowed  his  spectacles  in  his  waistcoat  pocket,  and 
then,  placing  a  hand  on  each  knee,  sat  and  stared 
with  widening*  eyes  straight  before  him. 

It  was  not  a  new  experience  to  be  thus  caricatured. 
He  had  long  since  acquired  a  politician's  stoicism 
and  could  affect  a  reassuring  indifference  to  attacks 


MALACHI    NOLAN  271 

of  the  press;  indeed,  if  a  newspaper  happened  to 
elude  him  and  slip  into  Nora's  hands,  he  could  even 
pretend  to  like  it.  But  this  cartoon  roused  the  fight- 
ing Irish  in  him. 

Malachi  had  promised  himself  to  retire  from  poli- 
tics that  spring,  though  his  wary  habit  had  kept  him 
from  taking  the  public  into  his  confidence.  He 
was  rich,  though  not  rich  enough  to  give  up  saloon- 
keeping  and  become  a  contractor  or  a  broker,  and  he 
had  lately  got  the  notion  that  he  was  growing  old. 
But  this  successful  politician,  who  so  long  before  had 
landed  in  New  York  a  homesick  emigrant,  had  one 
great  ambition  unfulfilled.  It  was  the  common  am- 
bition of  the  exile — to  see  his  home  once  more. 
When  first  elected  to  the  council,  after  toiling  years 
to  save  enough  for  his  first  small  saloon,  he  had 
found,  in  the  sentimental  manner  of  his  race,  his 
chief  joy  in  the  fact  that  it  was  in  the  character  of 
an  ex-alderman  he  could  go  home  to  Ireland.  Fate, 
of  course,  with  her  usual  irony,  had  embittered  his 
joy;  Molly  had  died  that  very  spring,  she  had  not 
been  spared  even  long  enough  to  see  him  take  his 
seat  in  the  council  chamber  behind  the  one  pathetic 
floral  piece  his  constituents  had  placed  upon  his 


272  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

desk,  but  had  left  him  to  sit  beside  the  candles  at 
her  wake,  with  lonesome  little  Nora  crying  at  his 
knee.  He  felt  that  he  had  earned  a  rest.  He  had 
worked  hard,  mastered  the  intricate  details  of  the 
water  office  and  the  special  assessment  bureau;  he 
had  done  his  part  in  making  a  town  of  wooden  side- 
walks a  city  of  steel  and  stone;  he  had  never 
betrayed  his  party  or  his  friend.  As  for  certain  of 
his  methods,  well — if  he  thought  of  them  at  all — 
they  were  direct,  and  they  won.  So  now  that  Nora 
was  grown  and  had  finished  her  education  at  St. 
Aloysius,  he  had  decided  to  retire  and  take  her  with 
him  on  the  long-dreamed-of  trip  back  to  Ireland — 
Ireland,  where  it  was  really  spring  that  very  morn- 
ing. 

But  he  wished  to  retire  gracefully,  to  name  his 
successor  before  he  went,  and  how  could  he  do  this 
with  the  reformers  making  the  fight  of  their  lives 
against  him?  It  would  take  Malachi  Nolan  some 
time  to  decide  a  question  like  that.  He  must  think. 
Nora  was  young;  after  all,  another  term  would 
make  little  difference;  if  he  concluded  to  give  some 
more  lessons  in  practical  politics  to  the  reformers, 
she  could  take  some  more  lessons  on  the  piano. 


MALACHI    NOLAN  273 

Meanwhile,  like  a  wise  statesman,  Malachi  Nolan 
set  about  his  day's  work.  He  had  enough  to  keep 
him  busy,  so,  drawing  out  his  gold  watch  he  care- 
fully compared  it  with  the  clock,  grasped  the  hour, 
rose  deliberately,  settled  his  ponderous  body  on 
his  thick  legs,  and  withdrew  behind  the  partition. 
When  he  emerged  to  view  again  he  was  wrapped  in 
his  frieze  overcoat,  with  his  square-crowned  hat 
pulled  down  to  his  eyebrows,  ready  for  his  morn- 
ing visit  to  the  city  hall. 

His  progress  over  the  great  building  was  con- 
stantly impeded  by  men  who  stepped  out  of  the 
rushing  throngs  of  lawyers  and  lawyers'  clerks,  city 
employees,  court  officials  and  politicians  to  shake 
hands  with  him,  to  whisper  to  him.  He  halted  each 
time  in  a  way  that  did  not  impair  his  Hibernian 
dignity,  heard  them  with  gravity,  and  walked  on. 
He  went  to  the  water  office  to  see  why  young  Hen- 
nessey had  been  laid  off;  to  the  civil  service  com- 
mission to  find  out  what  opportunities  the  sixty-day 
list  afforded;  to  the  commissioner  of  public  works 
to  have  some  laborers  put  on  the  pay-roll;  to  the 
board  of  election  commissioners  to  give  in  a  list 
of  certain  constituents  he  desired  to  have  appointed 


274  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

as  extra  clerks  during  the  spring  rush  of  work.  He 
dropped  in  on  the  chief  of  police  to  get  Murphy  on 
the  force ;  he  saw  the  city  clerk  about  a  good  fellow 
who  had  to  be  taken  care  of;  he  even  followed  the 
long  hall  to  the  court  house  wing,  where  he  whis- 
pered an  instant  to  Judge  Peters  and  had  a  friend 
excused  from  the  jury. 

And  then  he  called  on  the  mayor.  A  lieutenant 
of  police,  in  gold  stripes  and  stars,  the  velvet  cuffs 
of  his  blue  coat  scrupulously  brushed,  was  just  going 
in.  When  the  officer  came  out,  the  big  policeman 
standing  guard  at  the  door  raised  his  hand  in  a 
semi-military  salute,  and  he  kept  a  finger  at  his 
forehead  until  Malachi  entered,  thus  declaring  his 
abiding  faith  in  the  alderman's  political  star,  and 
his  concern  for  his  own  official  one. 

The  mayor  sat  at  his  great,  square  desk,  with  that 
look  of  nervous  weariness  Chicago  gives  the  faces 
of  its  successful  men,  though  the  morning  was 
young  and  the  day's  strain  scarce  begun. 

"Well,  Alderman,"  he  said  with  a  sigh,  "what 
can  I  do  for  you  ?" 

"Misther  May'r,"  said  Nolan,  "I  come  fer  to 
ask  a  favor." 


MALACHI    NOLAN  275 

The  shade  of  weariness  under  the  mayor's  eyes 
enveloped  his  brow,  although  he  tried  to  wipe  it  out 
with  his  palm.  Everybody  came  every  day  to  ask 
favors. 

"Now,  Alderman,"  he  said,  turning  away  fret- 
fully, "I  know.  Please  don't  ask  me  to  interfere  in 
your  fight  this  spring.  I'll  promise  to  keep  hands 
off  and  leave  you  alone.  Ain't  that  enough  ?" 

"Who  said  annything  about  my  fight  ?"  said  Mal- 
achi.  "It's  time  enough  to  saay  good  marnin'  to 
th'  divil  whin  ye  meet  'im,  Jawn." 

The  mayor  looked  a  bit  relieved,  and  turned 
toward  Malachi  with  half  a  smile. 

"Excuse  me,  Alderman,  I  supposed,  of  course — 
But  what  can  I  do  for  you?"  He  repeated  his 
formula. 

Malachi  seated  himself,  and  dangling  his  hat  be- 
tween his  knees,  he  said: 

"They's  a  laad  from  my  waard  in  the  Bridewell, 
Jawn,  an'  he's  a  mother  who's  wallopin'  a  wash- 
board be  th'  daay  an'  night  fer  to  make  a  livin'. 
His  name's  James  McGlone,  an'  I'm  afther  a  paar- 
don  fer  'im." 

The  mayor  scowled.    "What's  he  in  for?" 


276  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Damned  if  I  know,"  said  Malachi;  "he's  all  the 
time  in  wan  shcrape  or  anither  with  some  o'  thim 
bla'gyaards  down  there." 

The  mayor  was  turning  a  long  blue  pencil  over 
and  over,  end  for  end,  between  his  white  fingers, 
making  a  series  of  monotonous  tappings  on  his  desk. 

"Can't  you  wait  till  after  election?"  he  said  at 
last. 

"His  time'll  be  served  out  befoore  that,"  said 
Malachi,  "an'  ph'at  good'll  a  paardon  do  'im  thin?" 

The  mayor  continued  the  thoughtful  tapping  with 
his  long  blue  pencil. 

"Well,  Alderman,"  he  said  after  a  while,  "I'd 
rather  not  issue  any  pardons  before  election,  if  I  can 
help  it.  These  reformers  are  going  to  raise  hell 
this  spring,  sticking  their  noses  into  everybody's 
business,  and — " 

Malachi's  little  eyes  contracted  until  their  blue 
twinkle  was  almost  hidden. 

"But,  Jawn,"  he  said,  "so  much  the  more  r'ason 
why  ye'll  want  the  Firsht  in  th'  convintion." 

"Oh,  well,"  said  the  mayor,  "if  it's  important— 
And  he  pressed  a  button  under  his  desk.     Before 
his  secretary  appeared  he  added : 


MALACHI    NOLAN  277 

"You  say  you  don't  know  what  he's  in  for  ?" 

"I  dinnaw,"  Malachi  replied,  "Mallett  sint  him  up 

befoore  I  could  git  over." 

"You  ought  to  watch  those  things  more  closely, 

Alderman,"  chided  the  mayor  peevishly. 

Malachi  Nolan  sat  at  twilight  with  a  glass  of  hot 
toddy  on  the  leaf  of  his  desk,  and  he  sipped  it  with 
heavy  sighs,  for  he  had  taken  cold  out  in  the  March 
weather,  with  pores  opened  by  the  relaxations  of 
the  night  before.  Through  his  windows  he  could 
see  the  lights  glimmering  in  the  rain  that  had  fol- 
lowed the  moist  snow  of  the  early  morning,  and 
thousands  of  feet  trudging  by  under  rolled-up  trou- 
sers or  skirts  held  ankle  high.  At  intervals  the  feet 
would  line  up  along  the  curb  waiting  for  North  Side 
cable  cars,  and  seeing  them  paddle  in  the  dirty  slush, 
Malachi  in  the  selfish  spirit  of  contrast,  more  than 
ever  coddled  in  the  warmth  of  the  room,  of  the 
toddy  over  which  he  smacked  his  lips,  and  of  the 
cigar  he  smoked  so  slowly  and  comfortably.  As 
he  sat  and  smoked  and  sipped,  he  thought  again 
of  Limerick — the  breath  of  spring  blows  the  fra- 
grance of  the  hawthorne,  white  upon  the  bough;  he 


278  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

hears  the  song  of  the  mavis;  he  is  walking  home- 
ward along  the  black  path  through  the  bog,  and  up 
the  green  boreen,  and  there  before  him  is  the  little 
cottage,  its  thatch  held  down  by  sticks  and  stones, 
a  long  ash  pole  propping  up  its  crumbling  gable; 
there  is  the  mud  shed  with  the  thills  of  the  old  cart 
sticking  out  of  it;  the  donkey  is  standing  by,  sad  as 
ever ;  and  up  the  muddy  lane  little  Annie  in  her  bare 
feet  is  driving  the  cows  to  the  byre;  and  then  he 
sees  his  mother  sitting  in  the  low  doorway,  all  at 
once  he  catches  his  first  whiff  of  the  peat  smoke,  and 
with  the  strange  spell  that  odors  work  upon  the 
memory,  it  makes  him  a  boy  again ;  again  he  is  shel- 
tered on  a  rainy  day  in  the  mud  shed,  playing  shoot- 
marbles  with  Andy  Corrigan  and  Jerry  O'Brien; 
again  he  is  in  the  little  chapel  with  the  leaky  roof; 
he  sees  all  the  boys  and  girls — Mary  Cassidy  among 
them — standing  on  the  bare  clay  floor;  he  brings 
his  bit  of  stone  to  kneel  on  during  mass,  he  even 
runs  out  for  a  piece  of  slate  to  give  to  Mary,  who 
lays  it  in  the  puddle  at  her  feet  and  spreads  her  hand- 
kerchief over  it  before  she  kneels.  And  when  the 
mass  is  over  he  will  take  little  Nora — little  Nora? 
He  placed  his  hand  to  his  forehead  in  confusion,  and 


MALACHI    NOLAN  279 

then  in  a  gasp  it  all  comes  over  him — Mary  is  old, 
Andy  and  Jerry  are  old,  little  Annie  is  old  and  he 
is  old — they  are  all  gone  away.  He  bowed  his  head. 

And  yet  Nora  yearned  to  go.  Should  he  turn  the 
ward  over  to  Brennan  and  take  her  this  spring?  He 
could  run  for  the  legislature  when  he  came  back  in 
the  fall ;  a  senator  would  be  elected  by  the  next  gen- 
eral assembly,  and  the  graft  would  be  very  good 
then.  The  compromise  attracted  Malachi,  for  at 
once  it  acquitted  him  of  indecision,  a  quality  of 
statesmanship  he  hated,  and  kept  for  him  the  life 
of  power  that  had  become  as  the  very  breath  of  his 
nostrils.  He  would  have  been  happy  but  for  this 
stuffy  cold,  and  even  as  it  was  he  smacked  his  lips 
and  fetched  a  long  sigh,  as  he  put  down  the  glass. 

And  then  the  door  opened,  and  a  chill,  wet  wind 
blew  in,  causing  him  to  start  up  out  of  his  chair. 
He  looked  to  see  who  it  was  that  thus  broke  upon 
his  reveries — and  it  was  a  woman !  Now,  a  woman 
had  never  been  in  Malachi  Nolan's  place  before.  It 
was  a  thing  he  could  never  tolerate,  if  he  could  ever 
imagine  it  even,  and  he  hastily  glanced  around  to 
see  how  many  men  were  at  the  bar,  and  who  they 
were.  His  face  showed  positive  alarm.  But  the 


280  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

woman  entered.  She  was  accompanied  by  a  boy, 
who  slouched  in  behind  her,  shutting  the  door  at 
her  solicitous  command,  and  halted  there,  hanging 
his  head.  His  eyes  shifted  suspiciously  under  the 
hat  brim  that  shadowed  his  sallow,  prematurely 
wrinkled  face;  his  lips  curled  in  an  evil  sneer  that 
seemed  habitual. 

The  woman  fluttered  her  shawl  about  her  shoul- 
ders, clutched  it  to  her  thin  breast  with  one  hand, 
while  the  other  she  stretched  forth  with  a  blessing, 
as  it  were,  for  Malachi,  and  as  she  spoke,  her  seamed 
and  scarred  old  Irish  face,  bleached  in  the  steam  of 
many  wash-days  and  framed  in  withered  black  bon- 
net strings,  glowed  with  the  light  of  mother-love. 

"Praise  be,  Mal'chi  Nol'n,"  she  began,  in  a  high 
voice  that  immediately  stilled  the  clinking  of  glasses 
and  the  laughter  behind  the  partition.  "May  God 
bless  ye — ye' re  th'  foinest  man  in  th'  whole  town! 
To  think  of  yer  Tavin'  th'  laad  out  th'  way  ye  did 
— an'  so  soon  afther  me  havin'  th'  impidence  to  ask 
ye,  too — shure  a  mither's  blessin'  an'  th'  blessin'  of 
th'  Vargin'll  be  on  ye  fer  gettin'  th'  paardon  fer 
'im.  Shtep  up  here,  Jamesy,  and  t'ank  Misther 
Nol'n  yersilf — he's  th'  best  man — " 


MALACHI    NOLAN  281 

"Aw,  tut,  tut,  tut,  now,  Misthress  McGlone,"  said 
Malachi,  his  face  flaming  with  something  more  than 
the  exertion  of  craning  his  neck  to  peer  behind  the 
partition,  "tut,  tut,  now,  don't  be  goin'  on  like  that." 

But  the  woman,  brave  in  the  one  subject  upon 
which  she  could  dispute  the  alderman,  persisted : 

"Shure,  Mal'chi  Nol'n,  ye  know  it  yersilf — shtep 
up  here,  Jamesy,  an'  make  yer  t'anks  to  'im.  Th' 
laad's  a  bit  bashful,  ye  must  excuse  'im,  sor,  he's  th' 
best  b'y  ever  lived,  though  it's  mesilf  says  it  p'hat 
oughtn't  to." 

The  boy  still  hung  back,  but  the  old  woman  hitch- 
ing up  the  shawl  that  was  shamelessly  revealing  the 
moth-eaten  waist  she  wore,  plucked  him  by  the 
sleeve,  and  dragged  him  to  the  rail  that  separated 
them  from  Malachi.  The  boy  jerked  away  from 
his  mother's  grasp,  yet  lifted  his  unsteady  eyes  for 
an  instant  to  blurt  out : 

"Well,  I'm  much  obliged,  see?" 

And  then,  as  if  ashamed  of  so  much  politeness,  he 
hung  his  head  and  squeezed  the  toe  of  his  shoe 
between  the  spokes  of  the  railing.  The  old  woman 
folded  her  arms  in  the  shawl  and  gazed  on  him  with 
a  fond  smile  that  showed  the  few  loose,  yellow  teeth 


282  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

that  always  wobbled  in  their  gums  when  she  spoke. 
Presently  she  turned  to  Malachi  again : 

"Ye  mustn't  think  haard  o'  him,  Misther  Nol'n, 
he's  a  bit  back'ard  shp'akin'  to  th'  loikes  o'  ye,  ye 
moind,  but  he's  a  good  b'y,  an'  he'd  never  got  into 
throuble  if  it  hadn't  been  for  this  bad  comp'ny  he 
be's  dhragged  into.  Shure,  he  niver  shtays  out 
later'n  tin  o'clock  o'  noights  widout  tellin'  me  p'here 
he's  been.  This  afthernoon  Oi  was  shcrubbin' 
awaay  all  alone,  an'  who  should  come  in  all  o'  a 
suddint  but  him,  bless  th'  b'y,  an'  saay,  'Ma,'  he  says, 
'Alderman  Nol'n  got  me  a  paardon  an'  Oi — '  " 

"That's  all  right,  Misthress  McGlone— " 

"An'  God'll  bless  ye,  sor,"  the  old  woman  broke 
in,  unable  to  restrain  the  flood  of  tears  that  rilled 
her  filmy  eyes  and  zigzagged  down  her  cheeks.  She 
cried  softly  a  moment,  then  suddenly  looked  up  in 
a  crafty,  cunning  way. 

"They's  wan  thing,  Misther  Nol'n,"  she  said, 
"some  wan  was  so  good,"  she  looked  all  about  to 
make  sure  that  none  was  within  hearing,  and  low- 
ered her  voice  to  a  rough  whisper,  "as  to  sind  me  a 
ton  o'  coal  in  a  pushcaart  th'  day.  Oi  wonder  now 
who  could  that  be  ?" 


MALACHI    NOLAN  283 

The  alderman  raised  his  heavy  face  with  fine  in- 
nocence. 

"Where  did  it  come  from?"  he  asked. 

"Misther  Degnan's  yaards,"  the  woman  an- 
swered. 

"Thin  I  suppose  't  was  Degnan  himsilf  sint  it." 

"Aw,  there  now !"  the  old  woman  cried,  with  the 
triumph  of  a  vindicated  prophet.  "Oi  knowed  ye'd 
saay  that,  Oi  knowed  ye'd  saay  that — but,  shure  Oi 
think  't  was  yersilf  done  it." 

"L'ave  off,  1'ave  off,  now,"  said  Malachi  almost 
roughly,  "  'tis  no  place,  do  ye  mind,  fer  a  woman, 
an'  no  place  fer  th'  laad."  He  gave  the  boy  a  pene- 
trating glance  that  made  the  shifting  eyes  fall  sud- 
denly. "An'  'tis  late — did  ye  come  down  on  th' 
caar?" 

The  old  woman's  tears  running  down  her  cheeks 
had  left  stains  in  the  wrinkles,  and  she  began 
plucking  at  something  under  her  shawl.  Presently 
she  drew  forth  a  handkerchief  folded  in  a  soft 
little  white  square,  fresh  and  clean  from  the  iron, 
and  shaking  it  out  she  dabbed  at  her  weak  old  eyes 
and  wiped  away  the  tear  stains.  Her  voice  was  a 
whisper  again. 


284  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Aw,  Misther  Nol'n,"  she  began,  "it's  been  a 
haard  winther  on  the  poor,  an'  Oi've  had  to  save 
th'  pinnies,  shure  they're  scarce  enough,  an'  th' 
laad  with  no  job  an'  me  a  poor  widow  woman.  God 
forgive  me" — her  voice  sank  still  lower,  and  into 
the  whisper  came  a  hard,  rebellious  note — "but  some 
noights  Oi've  gone  without  me  supper — " 

"But  why  didn't  ye  tell  ?"  asked  Malachi,  looking 
up  in  concern. 

"Oi'd  die  first!"  she  whispered  hoarsely,  while 
her  wet  eyes  blazed.  "It'll  niver  be  said  Oi'm  a  beg- 
gar, an'  Oi  wouldn't  have  tould  anny  wan  but  you, 
sor" — she  gave  him  a  coaxing  smile  through  her 
tears,  and  bent  her  head  to  one  side  in  a  way  that 
seemed  to  recall  her  girlhood — "an'  maybe,  sor, 
ye'd  not  saay  annything  'bout  it — there's  a  good 
man,  now.  Oi've  kep'  up  th'  insurance  an'  there'll 
be  enough  to  give  me  a  dacent  bur'al  whin  Oi  die. 
Ye'll  excuse  me  fer" — she  stretched  a  hand  from 
the  shawl  and  touched  him  on  the  shoulder — "fer 
runnin'  on  loike  this,  but  Oi  couldn't  shlape  th' 
noight  till  Oi'd  come  down  to  thank  ye — God 
bless  ye,  sor,  Oi'll  pray  fer  ye  every  noight. 
We'll  be  goin'  now."  She  took  a  step  toward  the 


MALACHI    NOLAN  285 

door,  but  turned  back  again,  with  that  pleading  in- 
clination of  the  head,  that  smile,  showing  her  long, 
wabbling  teeth. 

"Ye  must  excuse  me,  sor,"  she  said,  "fer  throub- 
lin'  ye  so,  but  ye're  a  koind,  saft-hearted  man — ye 
couldn't  git  th'  laad  a  job  now — shure  Oi  know  ye 
couldn't — he's  an  hones'  b'y  an'  a  willin'  worker, 
sor,  whin  he  can  git  annything  to  do — ye  must 
excuse  me,  sor." 

Malachi  was  deeply  chagrined.  He  actually  got 
up  and  peeped  again  around  the  corner  of  the  parti- 
tion, and  then  said  hastily,  so  as  to  close  a  painful 
and  scandalous  incident : 

"Let  th'  b'y  come  down  an'  see  me  in  th'  marnin', 
ma'am,  an'  here's  a  bit  o'  caar  fare  fer  ye.  Do  ye 
go  now  an'  take  th'  caar  home.  'Tis  a  long  waays 
fer  ye  to  walk,  ye  niver  ought  a  done  it." 

The  old  woman  objected  at  first,  but  finally  con- 
sented to  accept  the  coin  on  the  basis  of  a  loan,  and 
then,  blessing  him  again  and  again,  courtesied  her- 
self in  an  old-fashioned,  rheumatic  way  out  of  the 
door.  And  then  Malachi  tilted  up  his  glass  and 
drained  the  last  drop.  The  toddy  had  grown  quite 
cold. 


286  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

The  law  of  moral  reaction  sent  the  gang  home 
early  that  evening,  and  by  ten  o'clock  it  was  plain 
that  the  day's  work  was  done.  Malachi  had  the  bar- 
tender help  him  on  with  the  frieze  overcoat,  and  was 
adjusting  his  hat  to  a  skull  that  still  was  sore,  when 
the  door  opened.  Malachi  turned  with  a  scowl,  when 
the  draft  struck  him,  and  saw  Sullivan,  the  ward 
committeeman,  and  Brennan,  Malachi's  political  re- 
siduary legatee.  Brennan's  eyes  were  sparkling  mer- 
rily, his  red  face  was  round  with  laughter,  and  he 
came  in  with  a  breeze  like  the  March  day. 

"Hello,  Mal'chi,"  he  called,  smiting  the  bar  with 
the  thick  of  his  fist,  "ain't  goin'  home,  are  you  ?  It's 
just  the  shank  of  the  evening.  What'll  you  have?" 
Then,  as  one  who  likes  to  think  he  has  special  priv- 
ileges, he  said  to  the  bartender  aside :  "Give's  a  nice 
little  drink  of  whisky." 

Malachi  neither  moved  nor  spoke.  Brennan  felt 
his  coldness  and  flashed  the  intelligence  to  Sullivan. 

"Just  saw  Jim  Degnan,"  he  said,  grasping  the 
sweating  whisky  bottle. 

"You  did,  did  you  ?"  said  Malachi,  in  a  challenging 
tone. 

"Yes,"  said  Brennan,  determined  to  be  genial. 


MALACHI    NOLAN  287 

"He  tells  me  you're  goin'  back  to  Ireland  in  the 
spring." 

"He  does,  does  he?"  again  challenged  Nolan. 

"Didn't  you  tell  'im?" 

"If  I  did,  did  I  tell  'im  phat  spring?" 

"Well,  I  s'posed  as  a  matter  of  course  he  meant 
this  spring." 

Brennan  bent  over  to  measure  his  drink  and  to 
hide  some  confusion.  "And  I  thought — you  know 
what  you  said,  Mal'chi — I  was  goin'  to  have  Mike 
here  call  the  convention  and  round  up  the  nomina- 
tion—" 

"Th'  hell  you  was !  Th'— hell— you— was !"  Mal- 
achi's  growing  amazement  lengthened  the  pauses  be- 
tween his  words. 

"Why,  didn't  you  say  you'd  t'row  the  nomination 
to  me  when  you  quit  ?" 

Brennan's  color  deepened  to  an  angry  red. 

"Did  ye  iver  see  such  narve!"  said  Malachi,  ig- 
noring the  question.  "Mike'll  call  th'  convintion  fer 
soon  enough,  but  whin  I'm  not  a  candy  date  in  me 
own  waard,  I'll  tell  ye  mesilf,  Willum  Brennan." 

"Well,  don't  get  mad  about  it,  Mal'chi,"  said 
Brennan,  who  was  getting  mad  himself.  He  shoved 


288  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

the  bottle  on  to  Sullivan,  and  blinked  his  small  eye- 
lids a  moment.  "Of  course,  Mal'chi,  it's  just  as  you 
say." 

"Well,  now,  ye're  talkin',  Willum."  Malachi 
never  could  brook  anything  like  interference  in  his 
ruling  of  the  First  Ward.  "Whin  I'm  done,  ye  can 
have  th'  nomination,  same's  I  told  ye,  but  this  spring 
I'm  a  candydate  mesilf,  do  ye  mind  that  now?"  He 
drew  closer  to  the  bar  in  his  softened  humor,  and 
now  that  the  question  at  last  had  been  decided,  and 
in  the  only  way  it  could  have  been  decided,  he  sud- 
denly became  himself  again. 

"When  do  you  want  the  convention  called  for, 
Mr.  Nolan?"  asked  Sullivan. 

"Sathurday,"  replied  Malachi  promptly. 

"Where?" 

"Oh,  same  as  usual — in  the  back  ind  of  th'  plaace 
here."  Malachi  jerked  his  thick  thumb  toward  the 
rear  end  of  the  saloon,  where  the  gloom  was  deep. 
"Prim'ries  fer  Friday." 

"All  right,"  said  Sullivan. 

Then  no  one  spoke  for  a  while.  Finally,  however, 
Brennan  said,  in  a  hesitating  way : 

"If  you're  goin'   back  to  the  council,   Mal'chi, 


MALACHI    NOLAN  289 

what's  the  matter  with  me  takin'  the  legislative 
nomination  in  the  district?" 

"It's  time  enough  to  saay  good  marnin'  to  th' 
divil  whin  ye  meet  'im,  Willum." 

There  was  silence  again,  until  Brennan  said : 

"Well,  I  can't  help  thinkin'  it's  a  fine  trip  to  Ire- 
land you're  losin'." 

"  Tis  so,"  assented  Malachi. 

"Yes,"  sighed  Brennan.  And  he  saw  his  ambition 
pass  from  him.  But  presently  he  was  saying  in  his 
old,  cheery  tone : 

"Ain't  you  goin'  to  take  somethin'  ?" 

Malachi  leaned  his  big  body  against  his  bar,  and 
over  his  shoulder,  out  of  the  corner  of  his  mouth,  he 
said: 

"Seegaar." 

The  bartender  slid  the  box  along  the  counter  and 
rang  up  another  ten  cents  on  the  cash  register. 

"Well,  here's  lookin'  at  you,"  said  Brennan,  rais- 
ing the  little  tumbler. 

"Dhrink  heaarty,"  said  Malachi  Nolan. 

The  long  day  was  done,  and  Malachi,  in  shirt- 
sleeves and  stockinged  feet,  sat  in  his  big  plush  rock- 


290  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

ing-chair,  his  legs  stretched  out  before  him,  taking 
his  ease  at  his  own  hearth.  When  he  had  come  home 
at  midnight,  Nora,  who  always  sat  up  for  him,  had 
insisted  upon  brewing  him  a  cup  of  tea,  under  the 
impression,  common  to  a  certain  class  of  women, 
that  it  has  great  medicinal  qualities.  Malachi  had 
sipped  it  obediently,  though  he  had  not  cared  for  it 
after  all  the  mineral  waters  he  had  drunk  that  day, 
and  had  enjoyed  far  more  than  the  tea  the  freckled 
Irish  face  of  his  daughter,  as  he  gravely  goggled  at 
her  over  the  rim  of  the  saucer  into  which  he  had 
poured  the  beverage  to  cool  it.  They  were  in  what 
Malachi  called  the  parlor  of  their  flat,  though  Nora 
had  lately  taken  to  calling  it  the  drawing-room.  It 
was  furnished  mostly  in  pieces  upholstered  in  plush. 
Over  the  mantelpiece  hung  a  large  crayon  portrait  of 
a  woman  whose  face,  despite  the  insipidity  the  can- 
vasing  artist  had  given  it,  still  showed  the  toil  she 
had  endured,  if  it  told  little  of  her  strong  character, 
while  that  disregard  for  expense  which  was  ex- 
pressed in  the  gilt  frame  marked  it  as  a  memorial 
of  the  dead.  It  was,  of  course,  the  face  of  Malachi's 
wife,  and  when  Nora,  in  her  new  culture,  had  hinted 
at  hanging  it  in  his  bedroom,  she  had,  for  the  first 


MALACHI    NOLAN  291 

time  in  her  life,  quailed  before  that  stubborn  spirit 
with  which  her  father  ruled  the  First  Ward.  The 
few  books  on  the  center-table  treated  mostly  of  re- 
ligious subjects,  though  there  were  queer  bound  vol- 
umes of  Irish  poetry,  and  on  the  wall  there  were  one 
or  two  etchings  in  oaken  frames.  In  a  corner  was  a 
crucifix  with  a  candle  before  it.  But  the  one  object 
in  the  room  that  dominated  all  the  rest  with  its 
aggressive  worldliness,  was  an  upright  piano,  and 
Nora  now  sat  swinging  on  the  stool,  her  back  to  the 
instrument,  her  elbows  behind  her  on  the  keys.  She 
had  partly  prepared  for  bed,  for  she  wore  a  flannel 
wrapper  and  her  brilliant  black  hair  hung  in  a  braid 
down  her  back.  Celtic  blue  eyes  lighted  up  her  face, 
and  now  they  smiled  under  their  long,  black  lashes 
upon  this  big  saloon-keeper  whom  half  the  city 
feared,  as  if  the  simple  sight  of  him  were  reward 
enough  for  her  long  hours  of  waiting. 

Malachi  finished  his  cup  of  tea  and  hurriedly  in- 
serted a  cigar  in  the  hole  at  the  corner  of  his  mouth, 
and  thus  confirmed  in  comfort,  he  said : 

"Nora,  child,  do  ye  sing  now — phat  was  that — 
it  wint  hummin'  t'rough  me  head  th'  daay.  Well, 


292  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

well,  well,  let  me  see  now — hum-m-m-m — it  goes 
something  like — " 

And  he  hummed  a  quavering  old  tune : 

"  *I  saw  the  Shannon's  purple  flood 
Flow  by  the  Irish  town.' ' 

Then  he  stopped  and  shook  his  grizzled  head. 
"Shure,  now,  I'm  forgettin'  it  intirely;  ye  know, 
though,  somethin'  about : 

"  'Whin  down  the  glin  rode  Sarsfield's  min, 
And  they  wore  the  jackets  green.' 

"Sing  it  onct,  fer  th'  ould  man." 

"But,  father,"  the  girl  laughed,  though  she  began 
screwing  up  the  piano  stool,  "it's  too  late,  the  neigh- 
bors will  object." 

"Niver  mind  th'  neighbors,"  commanded  the  al- 
derman in  the  tone  he  used  at  a  primary,  "sing  it." 

"But  it's  forbidden  in  the  lease  after  ten  o'clock," 
the  girl  protested,  leafing  over  her  music.  "What  if 
the  landlord — " 

"It's  time  to  say  good  marnin'  to  th'  divil,  Nora, 
whin  ye  meet  'im." 

Nora  fixed  herself  on  the  stool,  fingered  the  keys, 


MALACHI    NOLAN  293 

finding  a  soft  minor  chord.  The  old  man  closed  his 
eyes,  slid  farther  down  in  his  plush  chair,  and  just 
as  he  was  prepared  to  listen,  she  suddenly  stopped 
in  the  provoking  way  amateur  musicians  cultivate, 
to  say : 

"But,  father,  that's  such  an  old  song,  wouldn't 
you  rather  I'd  sing  the  Intermezzo  from  Cavalerief" 

Malachi  opened  his  eyes  with  a  start  and  sat  bolt 
upright. 

"Naw,"  he  said,  "none  o'  thim  fur'n  op'res — 
phat's  the  use  of  yer  goin'  to  th'  convint  all  those 
years  ?"  But  his  voice  quickly  softened.  "Do  ye  go 
on  now,  Nora,  darlin',  there's  a  good  gur-rl." 

And  so  she  sang,  and  the  alderman  sank  in  his 
chair,  with  his  big  arms  in  their  shirt-sleeves  thrown 
over  his  head,  closed  his  eyes  again,  stretched  out 
his  stockinged  feet.  The  smoke  from  his  cigar  as- 
cended to  the  chandelier,  and  now  and  then  when  he 
remembered  the  words  of  a  line,  he  hummed  them 
behind  closed  lips,  in  unison  with  his  daughter. 
When  the  song  was  done  Nora  whirled  around, 
clasped  her  hands  in  a  school-girl's  ecstasy  and  said : 

"Oh,  father,  that  song  makes  me  homesick — 
homesick  for  a  place  I  never  saw.  You  won't  run 


294  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

again,  will  you,  father,  will  you?  And  we'll  go  to 
Ireland  in  the  spring,  won't  we?  Tell  me,  in  the 
spring?" 

A  pain  struck  through  Malachi  Nolan's  heart,  a 
pain  that  was  made  only  more  poignant  when,  with 
her  American  fear  of  the  sentimental,  Nora  joked : 

"I  must  see  our  ancestral  cabin." 

Malachi  could  not  open  his  eyes.  For  once  he  was 
afraid.  He  did  not  move  for  a  long  time.  But  at 
last  he  sighed  and  set  his  jaw,  and  said : 

"Well,  Nora — if  ye  saay  so — in  the  spring." 

Malachi  Nolan  sat  bolt  upright  in  his  seat  in  the 
Pullman.  He  was  clothed  in  his  decent  black  suit, 
and  he  wore  his  black  cravat  tucked  stiffly  under  the 
collar  that  so  tightly  bound  his  thick,  red  neck.  On 
his  glossy  shirt  front  the  great  diamond,  four  carats 
in  weight,  rose  and  fell  with  his  heavy  breathing. 
At  his  feet  was  a  new  yellow  valise;  beside  him, 
wedging  him  tightly  into  his  seat,  was  Nora's  lug- 
gage, her  new  bag,  the  roll  of  steamer  rugs,  her  little 
umbrella,  her  plaid  cape,  and  all  the  things  she  had 
got  at  the  suggestion  of  friends  who  were  interested 
in  her  journey  across  the  sea  to  Ireland.  Nora,  in 


MALACHI    NOLAN  295 

her  new  traveling  gown,  was  prettier  than  Malachi 
had  ever  seen  her.  She  sat  in  the  front  seat  of  the 
section,  leaning  against  the  double  window,  her  el- 
bow on  its  narrow  sill,  her  chin  meditatively  in  her 
palm.  There  had  been  some  talk  between  them  as 
the  heavy  train  pulled  out  of  the  Van  Buren  Street 
station,  and  in  the  bustle  of  getting  away,  of  arrang- 
ing her  bags  and  her  bundles,  and  all  that,  Nora  had 
beamed  with  pleasure,  and  a  fine  and  happy  excite- 
ment had  sparkled  through  the  long,  black  lashes  of 
her  blue  Irish  eyes.  But  as  the  train  plunged  reck- 
lessly out  through  the  bewildering  yards,  she  had 
noticed  her  father  casting  wistful  glances  at  this  or 
that  familiar  object  sweeping  so  swiftly  and  irrev- 
ocably away.  There  was  the  Harrison  Street  police 
station  which  he  had  visited  on  so  many  mornings 
to  help  some  poor  devil  out  of  the  toils;  the  shops 
shutting  down  for  the  night,  their  workers  trooping 
homeward,  dead  tired  after  the  long  hours;  the 
Twelfth  Street  viaduct,  marking  the  limits  of  his 
ward ;  the  slips  in  the  south  branch  of  the  dirty  Chi- 
cago River,  where  big  schooners  still  lay  torpid  at 
their  winter  moorings,  the  crossings  at  Sixteenth 
Street,  then  the  dear  old  Archey  Road.  A  silence 


296  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

had  fallen  upon  him  that  reacted  upon  her,  and  she 
grew  still,  and  rode  on  in  the  swaying  train,  gazing 
soberly  out  upon  the  ragged  edges  of  that  Chicago 
she  was  leaving  behind  for  the  first  time  in  her  life. 

The  black  porter,  in  spotless  white  jacket,  was 
going  through  the  car  with  his  stool,  pulling  down 
the  inverted  globes  of  the  lamps  with  his  ventilating 
stick  and  lighting  the  four  little  gas-jets ;  the  travel- 
ers in  the  car  were  settling  themselves  accustomedly 
for  the  long  ride  to  New  York,  there  was  even  a 
prospect  of  some  cheer  in  the  dinner  which  was  soon 
to  be  served  in  the  dining-car,  but  the  alderman 
seemed  not  to  notice  any  of  these  things. 

Malachi  had  never  traveled  much.  His  only  trips 
had  been  those  biennial  ones  to  Springfield,  when  he 
had  headed  the  First  Ward  delegation  to  the  state 
conventions;  sometimes  he  had  gone  down  there 
while  the  legislature  was  in  session ;  and  once  he  had 
journeyed  to  Washington  with  the  Marching  Club 
to  attend  the  inauguration  ceremonies.  But  that 
was  all.  On  these  trips  he  had  gone  with  his  own 
kind,  and  doubtless  enjoyed  them,  but  now,  this 
evening,  it  was  plain  that  he  was  not  comfortable. 
He  could  not  smoke,  for  one  thing,  and  the  round 


MALACHI    NOLAN  297 

hole  in  the  corner  of  his  mouth  looked  forlorn  in  its 
present  lack  of  a  cigar.  He  must  have  thought,  once 
or  twice,  of  escaping  to  the  smoking-room,  but  each 
time  he  had  remembered  Nora,  and  so  had  sat  on, 
heavy,  imponderable  and  solemn. 

After  a  while  the  porter  got  the  little  lights  to 
burning,  and  they  illumed,  though  inadequately,  the 
long  coach,  its  heavy  trappings,  its  bell  cord,  the  sus- 
pended hats  and  wraps  swaying  from  side  to  side, 
as  it  creaked  and  groaned  over  so  many  switches  and 
curves  and  crossings  to  get  out  of  town.  They 
rushed  by  mills,  with  furnaces  blazing  like  infernos 
in  the  gathering  twilight,  and  black,  stubby  chim- 
neys lighting  the  dull  sky  with  flames;  at  last  they 
were  in  the  outskirts  where  the  city  helplessly  de- 
generates into  naked  flat  buildings,  finally,  into  low 
cottages  scattered  here  and  there  in  little  broken 
rows,  with  high  board-walks  in  front  of  them. 

Then  Malachi,  stooping  painfully,  unbuckled  his 
new  valise  and  took  from  it  a  newspaper.  Before  he 
unfolded  it,  he  drew  out  his  spectacles  and  calmly 
adjusted  them  to  his  nose.  Then  opening  the  paper 
he  began  to  read.  He  read  carefully  and  slowly, 
first  the  front  page,  column  after  column,  then  the 


298  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

second  page,  and  so  on,  methodically,  through  all  the 
pages.  His  lips  moved  slightly  as  he  read,  for  he 
had  to  pronounce  the  words  to  himself  to  get  their 
full  meaning.  When  Malachi  had  read  to  the  last 
line  of  the  last  column  of  the  last  page  of  his  news- 
paper, he  did  not  fold  and  lay  it  aside.  He  turned 
back  to  the  first  page  and  studied  the  picture  there. 
It  was  the  daily  cartoon,  and  the  central  figure  was 
intended  for  Malachi  himself.  That  there  could  be 
no  question  of  identity,  the  prudent  artist  had 
labeled  it  "Bull  Nolan."  The  figure  was  one  that 
Malachi  had  seen  in  the  papers,  in  varying  situations, 
for  years,  with  the  aldermanic  paunch,  the  massive 
chain  and  charm,  the  bullet  head,  the  stubble  of  hair, 
the  bell-crowned  hat,  the  braided  plaid  clothes, 
broad-soled  shoes  and  checkered  spats,  the  briskly 
radiating  lines  to  symbolize  the  diamond.  But  at 
last  the  inevitable  cigar  had  gone  out,  the  First 
Ward  no  longer  peeped  on  a  ballot,  secure  and  safe, 
from  his  waistcoat  pocket.  The  gentleman  with  high 
hat,  side  whiskers,  gloves  and  cane,  who,  labeled 
"Citizen,"  impersonated  the  better  element,  had  it 
now,  and  while  he  was  still  self-contained,  there  was 
a  look  of  almost  holy  triumph  in  his  face. 


MALACHI    NOLAN  299 

Malachi  studied  the  cartoon  a  long  time,  never 
changing  expression.  But  even  when  he  finished 
he  did  not  fold  the  paper  carefully  and  put  it  back 
in  his  valise,  nor  bestow  his  spectacles  in  his  waist- 
coat pocket.  He  had  suffered  many  lapses  in  his 
methodical  habits  of  late,  and  they  were  growing 
easy  now.  He  turned  to  the  editorial  page,  where 
a  line  in  big  types,  heading  a  leading  editorial,  had 
caught  his  little  eye.  It  said :  "The  Passing  of  Mal- 
achi Nolan."  Malachi  began  to  read,  slowly  and 
carefully,  pronouncing  each  word  to  himself : 

"Citizens  not  only  of  the  First  Ward,  but  of  the 
entire  city,  are  to  be  congratulated  upon  the  signal 
victory  the  Municipal  Reform  League  has  won  in  its 
campaign  against  Malachi  Nolan.  This  man,  who 
so  long  has  misrepresented  the  ward  mentioned  in 
the  city  council,  has  at  last  been  dislodged,  and 
driven  to  the  obscurity  of  private  life,  where  his 
pernicious  and  dangerous  tendencies,  if  not  alto- 
gether abated,  will  at  least  be  confined  to  a  narrower 
sphere  of  activity.  In  announcing  his  retirement 
from  politics,  he  gives  as  a  reason  his  desire  to  pay 
a  visit  to  his  native  land,  but  the  public,  while  speed- 
ing his  departure,  will  readily  penetrate  the  gauzy 
excuse  he  advances  for  it.  They  know  that  he  has 
been  forced  to  fly  from  a  field  rendered  utterly  un- 
tenable by  the  onslaughts  of  those  public-spirited 


300  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

gentlemen  who  at  great  personal  sacrifice  have  so 
freely  contributed  of  their  means,  their  energies  and 
their  time  to  the  work  of  the  Municipal  Reform 
League,  and  to  them  and  the  press  they  will  ascribe 
the  credit  and  the  praise.  It  would  seem,  however, 
that  the  Honorable  Bull  Nolan  has  lost  none  of  his 
presumption,  for  he  insolently  declares  that  he  leaves 
as  his  personal  representative  and  successor  in  the 
aldermanic  chair  one  of  his  henchmen,  William 
Brennan.  But  the  people  will  take  care  of  Mr. 
Brennan  at  the  proper  time.  They  will  see  to  it  that 
Nolan's  successor  shall  not  be  a  man  whose  political 
methods  are  such  as  will  enable  him  to  take  vacation 
trips  in  Europe,  and  with  the  abundant  encourage- 
ment they  have  now  received,  will  continue  to  widen 
this  breach  already  made  in  the  walls  of  corruption 
and  dishonesty  and  carry  on  the  splendid  work  for 
good  government  and  honest  politics — " 

Malachi  did  not  read  any  further.  The  lights  in 
the  car  were  poor,  after  all,  and  then,  his  eyes  were 
not  so  good  as  they  used  to  be.  He  folded  the  paper 
carefully,  looked  all  about,  then  hid  it  at  last  behind 
him.  Then  he  bestowed  his  spectacles  in  his  waist- 
coat pocket,  and,  like  Nora,  looked  out  of  the  win- 
dow. They  had  gone  through  South  Chicago,  they 
had  passed  One-hundredth  Street.  They  looked  out 
now  upon  the  dull  prairies  that  sprawled  flat  all 
about  them,  with  no  sign  of  spring  as  yet,  but  dead 


MALACHI    NOLAN  301 

and  desolate,  broken  only  by  a  black  and  stunted 
tree  here  or  there.  At  wide,  wide  intervals  a  lonely 
gas  lamp  twinkled  bravely  in  a  legal  way  as  if  to 
preserve  the  prescription  of  what  was  only  tech- 
nically a  street.  The  prairies  stretched  away  until 
they  faded  into  the  gray  gloom  of  the  March  even- 
ing, and  they  had  left  Chicago  at  last  behind. 


THE  PARDON 
OF  THOMAS  WHALEN 

THE  private  secretary  turned  reluctantly  from 
his  open  window  beside  which  the  trees  bathed 
their  young  leaves  in  the  sparkling  sunshine  of  the 
June  morning  to  confront  the  throng  that  awaited 
audience  with  the  governor.  The  throng  was  larger 
than  usual,  for  the  state  convention  was  to  be  held 
on  the  morrow.  Every  county  in  the  state  was  rep- 
resented in  the  crowd  that  trampled  the  red  carpet, 
crushed  the  leather  chairs  and  blew  the  smoke  of 
campaign  cigars  into  the  solemn  faces  of  former 
governors  standing  in  their  massive  gilt  frames  with 
their  hands  on  ponderous  law  books.  In  one  corner 
a  woman  huddled,  pinching  a  handkerchief  to  her 
eyes.  Now  and  then  she  sobbed  aloud.  When 
Leonard  Gilman,  the  private  secretary,  saw  her  he 
knew  it  at  once  for  a  pardon  case,  and  paid  no  fur- 

302 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    303 

ther  attention  to  her.  Big  countrymen  in  Sunday 
clothes,  who  wore  the  red  badges  of  delegates, 
slapped  him  on  the  back,  city  ward-heelers  of  check- 
ered lives  and  garments  called  him  "Len." 

There  was  an  odor  of  perspiration  in  the  room, 
distinguishable  even  in  the  heavy  fumes  of  tobacco. 
The  real  leaders,  of  course,  William  Handy  and  the 
others,  were  over  at  the  executive  mansion,  with  the 
governor,  completing  the  final  arrangements  for  his 
renomination.  The  governor  held  the  convention  in 
the  hollow  of  his  hand. 

The  woman  huddled  in;  her  corner  until  eleven 
o'clock,  and  then  Gilman,  happening  into  her  quarter 
of  the  room,  asked  her  what  she  wanted,  listening 
with  official  respect  for  her  reply.  It  was  an  old 
story  to  him.  When  she  told  him  he  smiled  a  strange 
smile  and  turned  away.  At  noon  the  governor  ran 
the  gauntlet  of  the  waiting  crowd  and  gained  the 
sanctuary  of  his  private  office.  Once  there,  breath- 
ing a  sigh  of  relief,  he  stood  for  a  moment  in  one  of 
the  tall  windows  looking  out  upon  the  smooth  lawns 
stretching  lazily  in  the  sun,  and  rolling  away  to  the 
elms  surrounding  the  state  house.  He  was  a  tall 
man  and  strong.  If  he  had  a  physical  fault,  it  was 


304  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

that  he  carried  his  head  too  low,  denoting  him  a 
thinker,  but  if  his  gaze  was  fixed  upon  the  earth, 
his  thoughts  were  in  the  stars.  Presently  he  shook 
his  splendid  head  vigorously,  wrapped  his  long  coat 
determinedly  about  him,  and  settled  himself  at  his 
desk. 

Oilman  entered,  bearing  a  pile  of  papers  demand- 
ing the  governor's  personal  attention,  but  the  morn- 
ing conference  was  very  brief  on  this  day.  As 
Gilman  turned  to  go,  the  governor  said : 

"I  desire  to  be  alone  to-day.  I  have  that  speech 
of  acceptance  to  write.  If  Handy  comes,  send  him 
in,  but  no  one  else." 

Gilman  laid  his  hand  upon  the  door-knob  and  the 
governor  asked : 

"No  one  of  importance  out  there,  is  there?" 

"No,"  said  Gilman.  "There's  a  woman — what  do 
you  think  she  wants?" 

"A  pardon,  of  course." 

"Yes,  but  for  whom?  You'd  never  guess  in  a 
thousand  years."  Gilman  was  smiling. 

"Then  tell  me." 

"Tom  Whalen !"  Gilman  laughed  at  the  humor 
of  it. 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    305 

The  governor's  features  relaxed  with  a  smile,  but 
quickly  his  brow  contracted  again,  and  he  said : 

"Well — poor  things — I  pity  them.  I  could  wash 
my  hands  in  women's  tears  every  week." 

"Well,"  said  Oilman,  opening  the  door,  "I  told 
her  she  could  see  you.  I'll  slide  her  out." 

The  governor  bent  to  his  desk,  but  just  as  the 
door  was  closing  he  called : 

"Oh,  Oilman !" 

Oilman  stopped. 

"Don't  do  that— tell  her  I'll  see  her  after  a  while." 

Oilman,  as  he  returned  to  his  desk,  smiled  and 
shook  his  head  at  the  governor's  weakness. 

Thomas  Whalen  was  a  life  convict  in  the  peniten- 
tiary. The  crime  was  committed  on  the  night  of 
the  election  at  which  John  Chatham  had  been  chosen 
chief  executive  of  his  state.  Whalen  was  a  boss  in 
the  nineteenth  ward  and  a  Chatham  man.  The  cam- 
paign had  developed  such  bitterness  that  Whalen 
found  it  necessary  to  name  himself  a  judge  of  elec- 
tion in  the  fourth  precinct  of  his  ward.  Many  times 
during  the  day  blue  patrol  wagons  had  rolled  into 
the  precinct. 

The  polling  place  of  the  fourth  precinct  was  a 


306  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

small  barber  shop  in  Fifteenth  Street.  During  the 
evening,  as  the  ballots  were  being  counted,  it  had 
become  apparent  that  an  altercation  was  in  progress 
behind  the  yellow  blinds.  It  was  abruptly  terminated 
by  a  shot.  The  lights  in  the  shop  were  extinguished 
at  the  same  moment.  A  man  burst  from  the  door 
and  fled.  When  the  police  arrived,  they  found  a 
dead  election  judge  face  downward  on  the  table. 
His  name  had  been  Brokoski.  The  bullet  had  passed 
entirely  through  his  body,  and  reddened  with  his 
blood  the  ballots  that  gushed  from  the  overturned 
box.  The  window  at  his  back  had  been  completely 
shattered  by  the  ball  as  it  flew  out  into  the  alley. 
This  was  a  large  bullet,  a  thirty-eight  caliber.  The 
police  found  a  revolver  gleaming  in  the  light  of  the 
dark  lanterns  they  flashed  down  the  alley.  It  was  a 
thirty-eight  caliber  with  one  empty  chamber.  It  was 
evident  that  the  murderer  had  discarded  it  in  his 
flight.  A  lieutenant  of  police  at  the  Market  Place  po- 
lice station  easily  identified  the  gun  as  one  he  had 
given  to  Whalen  several  weeks  previously.  The 
judges  and  clerks  had  rushed  after  Whalen.  The 
shock,  the  sudden  failure  of  light,  the  horror  of  the 
dead  man  in  the  dark  had  jangled  their  nerves.  They 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    307 

were  too  excited  to  give  a  clear  account  of  the  affair. 
They  knew  that  Whalen  and  Brokoski,  sitting  on 
opposite  sides  of  the  table,  had  been  quarreling. 
They  had  heard  the  shot,  had  been  blinded  by  the 
flash,  and  had  seen  Whalen  bolt.  Brokoski  had 
fallen  heavily  upon  the  table,  and  died  with  an  oath 
upon  his  lips. 

Oilman  never  forgot  that  wild  night.  He  had 
spent  it  with  the  governor  at  the  headquarters  of  the 
state  central  committee.  In  the  dawn,  when  the  east 
was  yellowing,  and  sparrows  began  to  scuffle  and 
splutter  on  the  eaves  of  the  federal  building  looming 
dour  just  over  the  way,  the  news  of  the  murder  and 
frauds  had  come  to  them.  The  governor's  face, 
white  with  excitement  and  fatigue,  had  suddenly 
darkened.  Had  it  been  the  shadow  cast  by  the 
passing  of  a  great  ambition  ? 

At  the  close  of  the  long  day  the  woman,  beckoned 
by  Oilman  into  the  governor's  presence,  lingered  on 
the  threshold  of  the  chamber.  The  room  was  full 
of  shadows.  The  figure  of  the  governor,  standing 
in  the  tall  window,  shut  out  the  waning  light,  and 
was  silhouetted,  big  and  black,  against  the  twilight 


3o8  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

sky.  He  did  not  hear  the  woman  enter.  She  coughed 
to  attract  his  attention.  This  did  not  arouse  him 
from  his  reverie,  and  after  a  moment's  timid  hesita- 
tion, she  said : 

"May  I  come  in?" 

The  governor  turned.  "Be  seated,  madam,"  he 
said.  "I  shall  be  quite  frank  with  you.  I  am  ac- 
quainted with  this  case,  and  do  not  believe  it  to  be 
one  justifying  executive  clemency." 

When  she  spoke  her  voice  was  tremulous. 

"Will  you  hear  my  story?" 

"You  may  proceed,"  the  governor  replied.  He 
had  pushed  the  papers  aside  and  was  drumming 
lightly  with  his  long,  white  fingers  on  his  desk. 

The  woman  nervously  pleated  her  handkerchief, 
fearing  to  begin.  "You  must  excuse  me,"  she  said 
presently,  "I  can  not  tell  my  story  very  well.  I  do 
not  come  here  for  mercy  or  anything  like  that.  It  is 
only  a  matter  of  justice." 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  gloom,  she  might  have 
seen  a  smile  steal  over  the  face  of  the  dark  figure  at 
the  desk.  Once  plunged  into  her  narrative,  her 
words  flowed  rapidly,  until — suddenly  she  ceased  to 
speak. 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    309 

"That  was  five  years  ago,"  she  said,  her  voice 
dropping  to  a  sadly  reminiscent  whisper.  "We  were 
to  have  been  married  that  spring,  but — I  would 
rather  not  tell  the  rest." 

The  woman  probably  felt  her  cheeks  flush  with 
warmth. 

The  governor  could  hear  her  quick  breathing.  In 
a  minute  he  said  kindly : 

"Well?" 

The  woman  hesitated  an  instant,  and  then  fairly 
blurted  out  the  rest  of  her  tale.  The  governor, 
through  the  darkness,  saw  the  woman  lean,  panting, 
toward  him.  Convulsively  she  pressed  her  hands  to 
her  face.  She  collapsed  in  tears.  When  her  sobs 
became  more  regular,  though  still  labored,  the  gov- 
ernor said : 

"And  Whalen— he  knew  this?" 

"He  must  have  known." 

"Then  why  did  he  not  tell?" 

The  woman  hung  her  head  and  said,  in  a  low 
voice : 

"I  was  mistaken,  sir.    The  other  woman  lied." 

"Ah,  I  see."  The  governor  turned  and  looked  out 
of  the  windows.  The  old-fashioned  iron  lamps  on 


310  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

the  broad  steps  that  led  up  to  the  state  house  were 
blinking  in  the  dark  trees,  and  the  arc  light  swinging 
in  the  street  swayed  the  shadows  of  their  foliage 
back  and  forth  on  the  white  walks.  A  flash  of  heat 
lightning  quivered  over  the  purple  outlines  of  the 
elms. 

The  governor  sat  for  a  long  time  in  somber  si- 
lence. The  woman  could  hear  the  ticking  of  his 
watch.  Presently  he  drew  it  from  his  pocket  and 
struck  a  match. 

"It  is  growing  late,"  he  said.  "The  tale  you  tell 
is  a  very  remarkable  tale.  My  time  is  so  fully  occu- 
pied that  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  devote  any 
thought  to  it  just  now.  If  vou  will  leave  your 
address  with  my  secretary  I  shall  communicate  with 
you.  Meanwhile — do  not  talk." 

When  the  private  secretary  had  conducted  the 
woman  from  the  room  the  governor  went  to  his 
window.  The  voices  of  the  June  night  floated  up  to 
him,  but  he  no  longer  heard  their  music.  For  the 
second  time,  at  the  name  of  Whalen,  and  even  in  the 
darkness,  there  swept  over  his  face  the  shadow  of 
the  passing  of  a  great  ambition. 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    311 

The  convention  met.  The  secretary  never  got 
down  to  ^  in  calling  the  roll  of  counties,  and  the 
governor  was  renominated  by  acclamation.  But 
never  in  all  the  exciting  scenes  of  those  two  days,  in 
the  black  moment  of  suspense  before  the  roll-call  be- 
gan, in  the  white  instant  of  agony  pending  the  poll 
of  the  Richland  County  delegation,  in  the  golden 
hour  of  triumph,  when  he  stood  pale  and  bending 
before  the  mad  applause  rolling  up  to  him  in  mighty 
billows,  did  he  forget  the  name  of  Thomas  Whalen, 
or  did  the  face  of  that  woman  pass  from  him.  They 
followed  him  persistently,  they  glimmered  in  his 
dreams.  There  was  no  escape  from  their  pursuit. 

After  a  week  in  which  he  found  no  ease,  with 
the  determination  that  characterized  him  when  once 
aroused,  he  undertook  a  judicial  investigation  of 
the  case.  He  obtained  a  transcript  of  record,  and 
read  it  as  carefully  as  if  he  had  been  retained  in  the 
case  and  sought  error  upon  which  to  carry  it  to  the 
supreme  court.  In  the  familiar  work  he  found  for 
a  time  relief. 

Gilman,  meanwhile,  had  forgotten  the  incident  of 
the  woman's  visit.  The  idea  of  pardoning  Tom 
Whalen  was  too  preposterous  to  rn^erit  serious  con- 


312  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

sideration.  But,  when  the  governor  told  him  to  go 
to  the  penitentiary  and  interview  Whalen,  and  then 
to  the  city  and  the  locality  of  the  crime  for  the  pur- 
pose of  learning  all  he  could  about  Brokoski's  death, 
he  damned  himself  for  having  mentioned  the  fact  of 
the  woman's  presence  on  that  crowded,  tobacco- 
clogged,  perspiring  morning.  And  as  he  left  the 
capitol  he  resolved  that  his  visit  should  be  astonish- 
ingly barren  of  results. 

Inside  the  warden's  private  office  at  the  peniten- 
tiary he  saw  Whalen.  The  man  had  found  the  con- 
vict's friend,  consumption,  and  Gilman  hardly  knew 
him.  When  the  private  secretary  told  him  of  the 
application  for  his  pardon,  Whalen  only  smiled.  Gil- 
man found  him  strangely  reticent,  and  after  an 
effort  to  induce  him  to  talk,  said : 

"Whalen,  really  now,  did  you  kill  Brokoski  ?" 

The  striped  convict  picked  at  the  cap  he  held  in 
his  lap.  A  bitter  smile  wrinkled  his  pale,  moist  face. 

"Suspected  again,  eh?"  he  said,  without  looking 
up. 

Finally  Whalen  tired  of  the  examination.  He 
breathed  with  difficulty,  but  that  may  have  been  due 
to  his  disease.  At  last  he  raised  his  shaven  head. 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    313 

"Mr.  Oilman,"  he  said,  "I  see  what  you're  getting 
at.  I  have  told  you  I  did  not  commit  the  crime  for 
which  I  am  here.  For  that  matter,  any  of  the  three 
thousand  other  prisoners  within  these  walls  and 
wearing  these  clothes  will  tell  you  the  same  thing.  I 
don't  know  whether  you  believe  me  or  not.  It 
doesn't  make  much  difference.  It  doesn't  matter 
what  becomes  of  me  any  more.  I  ain't  long  for  this 
world.  So  just  let  it  drop — what's  the  use  of  open- 
ing it  up  again  ?" 

"But  you  haven't  answered  my  question,"  said 
Gilman,  interested  in  spite  of  himself,  for  a  great 
fear  was  growing  up  within  him;  "you  have  not 
told  me  who  did  kill  Brokoski." 

The  convict  lifted  his  eyelids  slowly,  and  fastened 
his  vision  upon  his  interlocutor.  And  then  he  said 
very  deliberately  and  distinctly : 

"No,  Mr.  Gilman,  and  I  never  will !" 

Gilman  left  the  penitentiary  with  more  than  its 
gloom  upon  him.  He  declined  the  warden's  effusive 
invitation  to  stay  to  dinner.  He  wanted  to  get  away. 
He  could  not  forget  the  shine  in  Whalen's  eyes.  And 
the  fear  within  possessed  him. 

When  he  reached  the  city,  after  dining  at  the  chop 


3H  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

house  where  his  old  friends  foregathered,  he  went 
out  to  Fifteenth  Street.  Costello  had  sold  his  barber 
shop,  and  the  place  had  become  a  saloon.  The  saloon 
was  quiet  that  night.  Oilman  drank  with  the  bar- 
tender, and,  of  course,  talked  about  the  Brokoski 
killing.  The  bartender  had  made  a  study  of  that 
case,  and  discussed  it  with  the  curled  lip  of  the 
specialist. 

"They  didn't  do  a  t'ing  to  Tom  but  t'row  the 
hooks  into  'im  all  right,  all  right.  It  was  a  case  of 
him  in  the  stripes  from  the  start.  Say,  them  lawyer 
guys  and  fly-cops'd  frost  you." 

Then  carefully  locating  the  actors  in  the  tragedy, 
he  reproduced  it  vividly  before  Oilman's  eyes. 
Brokoski  had  faced  the  wall  where  the  hole  was. 
Whalen's  back  had  been  to  it.  Brokoski  had  sat 
with  his  back  to  the  window.  The  barkeeper  plunged 
his  red  hands  into  a  drawer,  rattled  a  corkscrew,  a 
knife,  a  revolver  and  a  jigger,  and  then  drew  out 
a  small  piece  of  lead.  It  was  a  thirty-eight  caliber 
bullet. 

"That's  the  boy  that  done  Brokoski,"  he  said. 

"Where  did  you  get  it?"  asked  Oilman,  with  the 
mild  awe  a  curio  excites  in  men. 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    315 

The  bartender  pointed  to  a  ragged  hole  in  the 
wainscoting. 

"Dug  it  out  o'  there  with  the  icepick.  I'm  a  Sher- 
lock, see?  Sure,"  he  sneered,  "it  might  'a'  bounced 
off  the  Polock's  breast." 

The  man  wiped  his  towel  over  the  bar  in  disgust. 

Then  seriously : 

"On  the  dead,  Mr.  Oilman,  if  Tom  had  his  rights, 
he'd  be  sent  back  to  the  ward  to  die." 

Oilman  was  troubled.  He  returned  in  the  morn- 
ing and  examined  the  premises  carefully.  At  two- 
twenty  that  afternoon  he  was  on  the  Limited,  flying 
back  to  the  capital. 

That  evening  he  was  sitting  with  the  governor  in 
the  library  of  the  executive  mansion.  The  windows 
were  open  and  the  odor  of  lilacs  was  borne  in  from 
the  summer  night.  A  negro  who  had  served  half  a 
dozen  governors,  shuffled  into  the  room,  bearing  a 
tray. 

"That's  excellent  whisky,"  observed  the  private 
secretary. 

"That  was  excellent  whisky,  Oilman,"  said  the 
governor,  "before  you  were  born." 

The  private  secretary  was  rolling  a  cigarette.    He 


316  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

rolled  it  with  unusual  deliberation,  licking  the  rice 
paper  many  times  before  trusting  himself  to  paste  it 
down. 

The  governor  bit  the  end  from  a  black  cigar.  A 
blazing  match  passed  between  them. 

Then  Gilman  told  of  his  interview  with  Whalen. 
He  did  not  display  much  spirit  in  the  telling.  When 
he  had  done,  he  flecked  the  ash  from  his  cigarette  in 
a  thoughtful  way.  Resting  his  forearms  on  his 
knees,  he  regarded  the  floor  between  his  feet. 

"Has  it  ever  struck  you  as  peculiar,"  he  said,  "that 
the  bullet  was  not  introduced  in  evidence?" 

"No,"  said  the  governor,  "not  very." 

The  private  secretary  paused.  When  he  had  done 
he  laughed.  The  governor  was  seriously  silent  for 
many  minutes,  and  then  he  said  : 

"Leonard,  I  want  you  to  tell  me  your  theory  of 
this  whole  business." 

Gilman  sat  up.  "Well,"  he  said,  "had  it  never 
occurred  to  you  that  it  would  have  been  significant 
to  determine  where  that  bullet  lodged  as  showing  its 
direction?  It  bored  a  hole  clear  through  Brokoski, 
but  at  which  end  had  it  entered  ?" 

"I  presume  the  medical  testimony  settled  that," 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    317 

replied  the  governor.  He  seemed  to  find  a  species 
of  relief  in  this  thought. 

"Yes,"  Gilman  said,  "but  the  medical  testimony 
was  bad.  It  consisted  of  the  conclusions  of  a  young 
doctor  who  examined  Brokoski's  body  after  it  had 
grown  cold.  He  accepted  Whalen's  guilt  as  an  es- 
tablished fact.  He  assumed  that  the  bullet  entered 
at  the  breast.  There  was  then  nothing  to  do  but  to 
trace  its  course  through  the  tissues  of  the  body.  If 
his  views  were  correct,  the  ball  would  have  lodged 
somewhere  behind  Brokoski." 

"But  it  flew  out  into  the  alley,"  argued  the  gov- 
ernor, "and  shattered  the  window  in  doing  so." 

"True,"  assented  Gilman,  "and  yet  you  assume  all 
the  while  that  Whalen  fired  the  shot.  Of  course  the 
circumstances  attending  the  tragedy,  the  occasion, 
the  quarrel,  Whalen's  flight,  and  the  finding  of  his 
gun,  lent  strong  color  to  that  presumption." 

"But  the  shattered  window,"  the  governor  inter- 
polated. 

"Yes,  and  the  shattered  window.  Now,"  he  con- 
tinued, "a  surgeon,  experienced  in  gunshot  wounds, 
might  have  been  able  to  distinguish  in  such  a  wound 
as  Brokoski's,  the  point  of  the,  missile's  entrance 


318  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

from  the  point  of  exit.  Of  course  it  is  not  certain. 
The  youth  the  police  called  did  not  think  such  an  in- 
quiry important,  whereas  it  was  vital.  A  pistol  fired 
point-blank  at  a  man  would  blacken  his  breast  with 
powder.  The  velocity  of  the  ball,  fired  at  such  range 
might  have  been  sufficient  to  knock  the  man  over 
backward,  instead  of  allowing  him  to  fall  upon  his 
face  as  he  did.  Then,  there's  the  window.  It  was 
shattered,  the  police  said,  by  the  ball.  Even  the  glass 
in  the  upper  sash  was  broken.  The  frame  on  the 
outside  was  blackened  by  powder,  the  stains  even 
now  being  visible.  Now,  a  bullet  flying  the  distance 
it  must  have  traversed  between  Whalen's  hand  and 
the  window,  would,  in  all  probability,  simply  have 
perforated  the  glass  with  a  round,  clean  hole.  But 
the  weapon  having  been  fired  in  close  proximity,  the 
concussion  shattered  the  whole  window." 

After  a  silence  Gilman  resumed : 

"Now  then,  assume  that  the  bullet  entered  Bro- 
koski's  back  and  emerged  from  his  breast.  The  con- 
clusion deduced  from  the  circumstances  I  have  sug- 
gested, is  impregnable  when  that  bullet  is  located  in 
a  position  in  front  of  Brokoski." 

During  the  recital  the  governor  lay  in  his  deep 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    319 

chair,  his  arms  across  his  breast,  his  finger-tips 
together.  He  regarded  Gilman  through  half-closed 
eyes.  A  thoughtful  observer  would  have  said  that 
he  had  heard  the  essential  elements  of  the  tale  be- 
fore. When  he?  spoke,  after  a  silence  which  had 
begun  to  annoy  the  private  secretary,  he  said: 

"Well,  your  hypothesis  is  tenable.  In  fact,  it  is 
one  of  the  prettiest  cases  I  ever  saw  put  together." 

Gilman  stirred  uneasily. 

"But  did  you  learn  anything  as  to  the  identity  of 
the  person,  who,  if  your  suppositions  are  correct, 
killed  Brokoski?" 

"That's  the  weak  point,"  Gilman  promptly  ad- 
mitted. "A  sufficient  motive  is  utterly  lacking,  if 
we  eliminate  partisan  hatred.  It  wa_s  shown  that 
Whalen  killed  him  in  an  impulse  of  passion,  and  that 
alone  saved  him  from  the  death  penalty.  But  I  feel 
that  my  reasoning  is  valid.  The  conviction  was 
strengthened  by  Whalen's  manner  and  expression 
the  other  day.  He  never  killed  Brokoski,  I  tell  you." 
Gilman  smote  his  thigh  for  emphasis.  "Why  he 
chooses  to  die  in  prison  a  silent  martyr  I  don't  know 
— but  the  woman  does." 

The  governor  assumed  a  sitting  posture. 


320  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

"Damn  it!"  exclaimed  Oilman,  after  a  momentary 
silence,  "if  those  stupid  police  had  examined  the  mud 
in  the  alley  beneath  the  window  that  night,  they 
would  have  found  tracks  that  would  have  changed 
the  course  of  this  whole  business." 

The  governor  bent  farther  forward,  burying  him- 
self in  an  intense  concentration  of  mind.  For  a 
time  interminable  to  Oilman,  he  sat  thus.  His  cigar 
went  out.  The  ice  in  his  glass  melted,  spun  on  the 
crystal  brim,  and  sank  with  a  tiny  splash  and  tinkle. 
The  little  pile  of  burned  cigarettes,  the  black  ends  of 
consumed  cigars,  the  mass  of  tobacco  ash  deposited 
in  a  whisky  glass,  absorbed  its  tepid  liquid,  and 
stunk.  The  room  grew  chill,  and  the  mists  of  the 
fountain  which  played  in  mournful  solitude  beneath 
the  rocking  elms  in  the  grounds,  permeated  the  at- 
mosphere. The  brooding  night  added  her  terrors 
and  her  cares. 

Oilman  took  a  sip  of  liquor,  lighted  a  fresh  cigar- 
ette, rose,  and  walked  up  and  down  the  room.  He 
thought  of  the  election,  so  near  at  hand.  He  looked 
at  the  governor  bowed  there  before  him.  What  was 
Whalen,  or  the  woman,  or  anybody  to  him  ?  Let  the 
prisoner  die !  What  was  he  to  the  governor  ?  John 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    321 

Chatham's  party  needed  him,  his  country  needed 
him,  his  time  needed  him,  mankind  and  human  prog- 
ress needed  him.  If  he  pardoned  Whalen,  what 
was  to  become  of  him?  The  conviction  of  Brokoski's 
murderer  alone  could  save  him  from  such  apparent 
stultification,  here  on  the  eve  of  an  election  at  which, 
in  the  foolish  phrase  of  modern  politics,  he  sought 
vindication.  Was  this  conviction  possible?  The 
bare  thought  halted  Oilman  beside  the  governor.  He 
laid  a  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"These  abstruse  propositions  wouldn't  stand  be- 
fore a  jury  in  a  criminal  court,"  he  said.  "Let 
Whalen  stay." 

The  governor  lifted  his  head. 

"But  you  just  now  said  that  he  was  not  Bro- 
koski's murderer." 

Gilman  hesitated.    When  he  spoke,  he  said : 

"A  jury  of  twelve  sworn  men  has  said  that  he  is." 

Two  days  after  the  private  secretary's  return,  the 
newspapers  were  full  of  stories  concerning  his  move- 
ments. Whalen's  picture  was  exploited,  corres- 
pondents sought  the  governor  for  interviews,  and 
the  Courier  charged  that,  in  his  desperation,  he  in- 


322  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

tended  to  pardon  Whalen,  that  he  might  have,  in  his 
campaign,  the  assistance  of  that  skilled  and  un- 
scrupulous manipulator.  The  pack  of  country  news- 
papers took  up  the  Courier's  cry.  Whalen's  illness 
was  either  ignored,  or  referred  to  as  feigned,  at  the 
direction  of  prison  authorities  and  the  governor. 
And  yet  a  certificate  pigeonholed  in  Gilman's  desk, 
signed  by  the  prison  physician,  stated  that  Thomas 
Whalen  had  pulmonary  tuberculosis  and  was  in  a 
moribund  condition. 

In  his  office  in  the  city  William  Handy,  the  chair- 
man of  the  state  central  committee,  read  these  news- 
paper stories,  and  swore  as  he  did  so.  That  night 
the  shrewdest  and  maddest  politician  in  the  state 
stole  out  of  town.  The  next  morning  Oilman  was 
surprised  when  the  big  man  burst  through  the  door 
marked  "private,"  brushed  by  him  and  entered,  un- 
announced, the  governor's  chambers.  Before  the 
stately  door  swung  to  behind  him,  Gilman  heard 
him  demand : 

"What's  all  this  I  hear  about  your  pardoning 
Tom  Whalen?" 

The  private  secretary  did  not  hear  the  governor's 
reply,  for  with  deliberate  step  he  had  crossed  the 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    323 

room  and  closed  the  door.  He  heard  nothing  clearly, 
for  Handy's  voice  came  to  him  smothered,  and  the 
governor's  not  at  all.  Once  he  thought  he  heard 
"mawkish  sentiment,"  and  "the  action  of  a  political 
imbecile,"  but  what  he  mostly  distinguished  was 
muffled  profanity.  The  young  man  for  the  first  time 
in  his  experience  was  delighted  when  his  bell  buzzed 
just  then.  When  he  entered  upon  the  scene,  the 
governor,  rocking  complacently  in  his  high-backed 
chair,  was  saying : 

"But  what  if  it's  my  duty?" 

"Duty  be  damned !"  shouted  Handy,  rising  to  his 
feet,  and  smiting  the  desk  with  a  heavy  fist  he  had 
had  folded  during  the  conversation.  The  wrath 
which  the  politician  had  kept  bottled  up  overnight 
had  burst  out  at  last. 

"I  am  running  this  campaign,"  he  cried,  "and  as 
long  as  I  do  run  it,  I  do  not  propose  to  tolerate  such 
incredible  folly  as  pardoning  Tom  Whalen." 

Oilman,  wide-eyed,  gazed  in  amaze  at  the  two 
men.  Handy  stood  glaring  at  the  governor,  his 
fist  fastened  where  it  had  fallen.  The  governor's 
lips  were  tightly  compressed.  A  sheet  of  scarlet 
swept  over  his  dark  face.  Both  men  were  strong- 


324  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

willed.  The  tensity  of  such  a  moment  could  not 
long  endure.  Its  contagion  spread  to  Oilman's 
nerves.  The  governor's  splendid  frame  seemed  to 
dilate,  and  Oilman  suddenly  became  conscious  that 
the  admiration  he  had  always  given  the  man  had 
never  before  measured  up  to  the  fullness  of  John 
Chatham's  deserts.  It  was  with  relief  that  he  saw 
the  governor's  glance  turn  from  Handy  to  bend  on 
him. 

"Oilman,"  he  said,  "have  a  pardon  made  out  for 
Thomas  Whalen." 

This  answer  to  Handy's  threats  was  punctuated 
by  a  flash  from  the  governor's  eyes. 

"And  Oilman — "  the  governor  continued. 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Wire  that  woman — what's  her  name?" 

"Barry?" 

"Yes — Barry — wire  her  to  come.  I  think  I  shall 
prefer  to  tell  her  myself." 

Handy  dropped,  heavy  with  exhaustion,  into  his 
chair.  He  tried  to  speak,  but  had  trouble  with  his 
articulation.  When  he  mastered  his  tongue,  he 
could  only  blurt : 

"Now  you  have  done  it,  haven't  you?" 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    325 

"Yes,"  said  the  governor  in  gentle  assent,  "I  have 
done  it."  The  sigh  that  ended  this, remark  was  one 
in  which  a  heart-burdening  care  was  dissipated.  It 
was  a  sigh  that  resolved  a  vast  difficulty. 

When  the  woman  came  the  next  morning,  Gil- 
man  led  her  at  once  into  the  governor's  presence. 
Before  him  lay  a  large  document,  lettered  in  pre- 
posterous script,  lined  in  red  ink.  The  woman  knew 
this  imitation  parchment  to  be  the  pardon  of 
Thomas  Whalen.  The  governor  rose  and  stood 
until  she  had  seated  herself,  and  then  said,  drawing 
the  pardon  on  the  desk  to  him,  "I  have  decided  to 
grant  the  application  for  Whalen's  pardon." 

The  woman's  fingers  clawed  the  carved  arms  of 
the  chair.  Oilman  stared  with  parted  lips.  The 
governor  continued  as  he  hastily  scanned  the  par- 
don: 

"I  take  this  action  because  circumstances  recently 
revealed  lead  me  to  believe  that  Whalen  is  inno- 
cent." 

The  governor  dipped  his  pen  in  the  ink. 

"They  form  a  very  abstruse  proposition,"  he  said, 
poising  his  pen  nicely  in  his  fingers,  "and  I  am  not 
sure  that  every  one  can  grasp  it." 


326  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

The  governor  spoke  meditatively.  The  two  per- 
sons in  the  room  silently  regarded  him.  Something 
in  the  man,  in  the  moment,  impelled  awe.  He  set 
his  hand  to  the  paper  to  write,  but  paused  an  instant 
longer.  His  eyes  wandered  from  the  document.  As 
he  raised  them  over  her,  the  woman  bowed  her  head. 
Out  through  the  open  window,  out  through  the  sum- 
mer morning,  over  the  wimpling  foliage  of  the  trees, 
far,  far  away  they  gazed.  And  then  he  sighed,  as  a 
woman  sighs,  and  turning,  signed  the  pardon  of 
Thomas  Whalen.  A  moment  he  sat  still  as  an 
ancient  statue,  and  then  dropping  the  pen  on  the 
desk,  he  turned  toward  Oilman  with  a  smile.  The 
action  relieved  the  young  man  from  the  spell  which 
bound  him. 

"Are  you  going  before  the  people  with  that  story 
I  worked  up?"  he  cried. 

.Fiercely,  without  awaiting  a  reply  to  a  question 
already  answered,  he  wheeled  on  the  woman. 

"Do  you  see  what  he  has  done  ?  He  has  given  up 
all — he  has  killed  himself !  He  says  Whalen  is  inno- 
cent— and  doesn't  even  know  upon  whom  to  fasten 
suspicion !  Don't  you — my  God,  woman — can't  you 
see?" 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    327 

Slowly  the  situation  was  borne  in  upon  her  under- 
standing. Her  mouth  opened  with  a  gasp,  her  eyes 
widened. 

"Why !"  she  said,  jerking  her  words  from  a  chok- 
ing throat.  "He  knows  who  did  it.  I  told  him.  It 
was — me." 

The  door  latch  clicked  behind  her.  She  turned 
in  the  direction  whence  came  the  sound,  and  re- 
peated, as  if  the  interrupter  contradicted  her: 

"Yes,  I  did  it.    I  killed  Brokoski." 

Her  strength  failed  her.  She  sobbed  convul- 
sively. 

"Yes— I— did— it,"  she  repeated.  "I— did— it." 

Gilman  stared  in  wonder.  Here,  then,  was  the 
person  who  had  stood  in  the  alley  beneath  the  win- 
dow that  night,  whose!  footprints  would  have  led 
him  to  the  solution  of  his  mystery,  to  the  end  of  his 
clever  chain.  The  problem  of  her  motive  for  slay- 
ing Brokoski  alone  remained.  He  longed  to  ask  her, 
but  she  had  collapsed  unconscious  in  her  chair. 
Turning  to  the  governor  he  implored  light.  A  word 
informed  him  of  the  accidental  killing  of  Brokoski 
by  a  jealous  woman  who  was  trying  to  shoot  his  vis- 
a-vis. Then  he  demanded  in  tones  reproachful: 


328  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

"Why  did  you  not  tell  me  this?" 

"Because,"  the  man  quietly  responded,  "I  do  not 
war  on  women." 

The  door  whose  latch  had  clicked  had  opened 
wide,  and  William  Handy  entered,  smiling. 

Governor  Chatham  was  assorting  papers  on  his 
desk,  as  a  man  would  whose  routine  work  had  re- 
ceived a  trifling  interruption.  Handy  remained  on 
his  feet. 

"John,"  he  said,  "John,  I  take  off  my  hat  to  you. 
I  admire  your  nerve.  I  recognized  it  years  ago, 
that  day  you  presided  over  our  convention  in  the  old 
seventh  district — remember? — the  day  you  turned 
me  down  so  hard.  Remember  ?" 

The  governor  smiled. 

"This  ain't  flattery,"  said  Handy,  seating  himself 
in  a  leather  chair.  "You're  not  only  all  I've  said, 
you're  a  devil  of  a  good  fellow  to  boot." 

Handy  spoke  seldom.  He  never  wrote  letters,  but 
sent  word,  according  to  an  ancient  maxim  uttered 
by  one  of  the  political  fathers.  But  when  he  did 
speak,  he  spoke  bluntly,  in  the  same  tone  in  which 
he  would  have  called  a  man  a  liar.  The  governor 
raised  his  hand  to  stay  Handy's  compliments. 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    329 

"Yes,  John,"  he  persisted.  "You're  a  hell  of  a 
good  fellow,  but,"  he  added,  "you're  a  damn  poor 
politician." 

There  was  the  faintest  shadow  of  a  smile  on  the 
governor's  face.  Handy  closed  his  eyes  until  they 
were  the  merest  slits.  He  puffed  his  cigar  back  to 
life. 

His  head  was  wrapped  in  scarfs  of  smoke. 

"When  does  the  grand  jury  sit?"  he  inquired, 
after  a  time. 

"Not  till  the  December  term." 

"We  can  have  a  special  one  impaneled.  I'll  have 
Donnelly  call  it." 

Donnelly  was  a  judge  of  dignity  and  erudition, 
and  Handy  spoke  of  him  as  if  he  were  his  hired  man, 
which  he  was. 

"The  boys'll  be  glad  to  get  Tom  back  in  the  nine- 
teenth. O'Rourke  says — " 

"Look  here,  Handy,"  said  the  governor,  whirling 
about  in  his  chair,  and  speaking  as  sharply  as  a  pre- 
cinct captain  at  a  primary.  "I  want  none  of  Tom 
Whalen's  work  in  the  nineteenth — not  while  I'm 
running  for  governor.  But  then,"  he  added  gravely, 
"he's  only  going  back  to  the  nineteenth  to  die." 


330  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

Handy  grunted.  "Well,  I'll  have  Fitzgerald 
pinch  the  girl  anyway,  and  keep  her  in  the  Division 
Street  station  till  after  election." 

The  governor  looked  at  Handy.  "William,"  he 
said,  "you  might  as  well  understand  now,  that  that 
would  be  wholly  useless.  I  am  convinced  of  Wha- 
len's  innocence  absolutely,  beyond  all  doubt,  but 
it  will  be  impossible  to  get  a  jury  to  convict  the  one 
who  did  kill  Brokoski  on  such  evidence  as  convinced 
me." 

"But  she  confesses,"  urged  Handy. 

"To  whom?" 

"To  you." 

"Exactly.  But  what  if  that  confession  be  a  priv- 
ileged communication  ?" 

Handy  looked  up  in  amazement.  "You  don't 
mean  you  wouldn't  testify?" 

The  governor's  countenance  lost  its  legal  expres- 
sion, and  became  suddenly  human.  If  Handy  had 
been  a  thinner  man  he  would  have  jumped  when  the 
governor  said : 

"Do  you  think  I  would  send  a  woman  to  the  peni- 
tentiary to  elect  myself  governor?" 

"Are  you  sure  confessions  to  a  governor  are  priv- 


THE  PARDON  OF  THOMAS  WHALEN    331 

ileges?"  inquired  Handy,  who  was  adhering  to  prac- 
tical things. 

The  governor's  face  put  on  its  legal  mask  again, 
and  he  replied : 

"Well,  the  question  is  unsettled — " 

"Who  presides  in  the  criminal  court  this  winter  ?" 
inquired  Handy,  "any  of  our  fellows?"  Handy's 
whole  philosophy  of  life  was  pull.  The  governor 
resumed,  without  answering: 

"The  question  has  never  been  decided.  Mr.  Chief 
Justice  Marshall,  upon  the  trial  of  Aaron  Burr, 
ruled,  if  I  remember,  that  a  subpoena  duces  tecum 
might  be  issued  to  the  president  for  a  letter  ad- 
dressed to  him,  leaving  the  question  of  the  produc- 
tion of  the  letter—" 

"Oh,  say,  John,"  broke  in  Handy,  "Burr's  dead, 
isn't  he  ?  And  he  wasn't  a  good  fellow,  anyway,  or 
he'd  never  got  in  that  far.  Go  on  with  your  legalities 
— I  myself  do  not  propose  to  go  to  jail  for  contempt 
for  refusing  to  testify." 

"You?" 

"Yes,  me." 

"What  have  you  to  do  with  it?" 

"Oh,  nothing  much,"  said  Handy,  "only  I  hap- 


332  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

pened  to  be  inside  that  door  just  now  when  she  con- 
fessed— and  there's  Oilman  besides."  Handy,  his 
cigar  tilted  upward,  smoked  on  voluminously  and 
smiled  through  the  smoke  with  deep  satisfaction. 
The  governor  averted  his  face.  Lines  of  trouble 
drew  themselves  across  his  brow.  Presently  he 
turned  to  the  chairman. 

"Handy,"  he  said,  "I  may  be  reflected  and  I  may 
not — probably  not.  However  that  may  be,  I  insist 
upon  this :  I  want  that  woman,  for  the  present,  let 
alone.  I  have  faith  in  the  people.  I  am  willing  to 
go  to  them  on  my  record.  They  may  or  may  not 
reelect  me.  I  shall  not,  at  any  rate,  have  my  motives 
impugned.  I  only  want,  when  the  turmoil  has  sub- 
sided, when  the  subject  can  be  viewed  with  clear 
eyes  and  investigated  by  clear  heads  and  clean 
hands,  to  see  justice  done." 

"Oh,"  said  Handy,  "to  hell  with  justice." 
"Well,  then,"  asked  the  governor,  "what  do  you 
say  to  a  little  mercy  now  and  then  ?" 


THAT  BOY 

IT  must  have  been  sometime  in  the  winter  or 
spring  of  1891  that  I  first  saw  him.  I  had  just 
been  elected  to  the  legislature.  It  was  the  famous 
Reform  Session,  you  will  remember,  that  proved  to 
be  of  such  benefit  to  stenographers  and  space  writers. 
During  the  six  months  that  general  assembly  lasted 
I  lived  at  the  St.  James  hotel.  It  is  probable  that  I 
first  saw  the  boy  behind  the  counter  of  the  cigar 
stand  in  the  lobby  of  the  hotel.  It  is  probable  that  I 
had  seen  and  spoken  to  him  many  times  before  I 
gave  him  any  especial  notice.  What  first  arrested 
my  attention  was  a  law  book.  I  had  stopped  at  the 
cigar  stand  one  evening  after  dinner  to  get  some 
cigars,  and  as  he  rose  to  attend  upon  my  wants, 
he  took  the  book  from  his  lap  and  laid  it  down  upon 
the  counter.  While  he  was  under  the  counter  getting 
out  a  box  of  the  brand  I  wished — for  I  never  relish, 

333 


334  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

somehow,  cigars  taken  from  a  show  case — I  turned 
the  book  over  and  idly  looked  at  its  title.  I  remember 
very  well  that  it  was  Reeves' History  of  the  English 
Law.  It  struck  me  as  rather  odd  that  a  boy  behind 
a  cigar  stand  should  be  reading  such  a  book.  It  was 
not  a  book  that  law  students,  in  my  state,  at  any 
rate,  generally  read.  I  know  that  I  never  read  it 
(through)  and  probably  never  shall  read  it,  although 
it  is,  of  course,  a  wise  and  ancient  book.  I  asked 
him  why  he  read  it. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "I'm  studying  law!" 

As  I  lighted  a  cigar,  I  looked  at  the  boy.  He  was 
tall  and  overgrown,  and  thin  with  his  overgrowth, 
with  spare  wrists  that  thrust  themselves  out  of 
frayed  cuffs.  His  face  was  sallow,  and  he  was  not 
good  to  look  upon.  His  clothes  were  worn  bare  to 
the  threads.  He  had  every  appearance  of  being 
poor,  almost  hungry.  I  fancy  I  disliked  him. 

"When  do  you  expect  to  be  admitted?"  I  asked 
casually. 

"Oh,"  he  replied,  blithely  enough,  "in  two  or  three 
years.  Then  I  go  into  politics." 

This,  I  have  said,  was  in  1891.  If  anything  im- 
pressed me,  it  was  the  hopelessness  of  it  all. 


THAT    BOY  335 

In  1893,  early  in  the  summer,  I  went  down  to  the 
capital  to  argue  a  case  at  the  June  term  of  the  su- 
preme court.  In  the  evening,  after  a  hard  day  in 
court,  I  strolled  out  Lafayette  Street  to  mollify  my 
nerves.  Toward  the  edge  of  the  town  I  saw  a  thin 
youth  walking  with  a  girl.  The  girl  wore  a  wfcite 
dress.  The  evening  was  balmy.  The  moon  was  shin- 
ing. The  lilacs  were  in  bloom,  and  their  odor  was  on 
the  air.  As  we  passed  each  other,  the  youth's  ap- 
pearance struck  me  as  familiar.  At  the  time  I 
thought  that  he  was  the  boy  who  used  to  tend  the 
cigar  stand  in  the  St.  James,  and  read  Reeves'  His- 
tory of  the  English  Law,  whom  I  had  naturally  for- 
gotten. 

In  the  spring  o-f  1898 — I  remember  the  time,  not, 
of  course,  because  it  has  anything  to  do  with  the  boy 
but  because  we  were  then  engaged  in  the  track  eleva- 
tion cases — I  went  over  to  the  Gregory  Building  one 
morning  to  see  Judge  Goodman,  in  order  to  get  him 
to  consent  to  the  Updegraff  case  going  over  the 
term.  That  was  a  case  which  involved  the  doctrine 
of  merger,  and  I  needed  some  additional  time  for 
preparation. 

As  I  entered  the  offices  of  Goodman,  Peck,  Gil- 


336  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

more  and  Eckhart,  I  turned  to  the  office  boy,  who 
was  sitting  near  the  door  at  the  futile  little  desk  all 
office  boys  occupy,  and  on  which  they  scribble  mys- 
terious things,  to  ask  whether  the  judge  was  in. 
When  I  spoke  to  the  boy  he  looked  up  and  smiled 
and  called  me  by  name.  He  seemed  to  be,  for  some 
reason,  glad  to  see  me,  as  if  I  had  been  some  one 
from  home.  In  fact,  he  said : 

"Have  you  been  down  lately?" 

I  examined  him  quite  attentively  for  an  instant. 
He  had  half  risen  from  his  chair,  and  stood,  or  hung, 
in  an  awkward  attitude  over  his  desk.  Presently  I 
recognized  him  as  the  boy  who  used  to  tend  the  cigar 
stand  in  the  hotel  at  the  state  capital,  and  read 
Reeves'  History  of  the  English  Law.  I  asked  him 
what  he  was  doing  in  the  city. 

"Why,"  he  said,  in  apparent  surprise  at  my  ques- 
tion, "I'm  practising  law !" 

His  eyes,  in  his  pale  face,  dilated  with  a  childish 
pride,  until  they  were  large  and  round  and  brilliant. 
He  had  drawn  himself  quite  erect,  and  now  he 
waved  his  hand  toward  the  wall,  and  there  I  saw,  in 
a  new  oak  frame,  the  old  familiar  law  license  the 
supreme  court  issues  to  poor  devils  with  illusions. 


THAT    BOY  337 

There  it  was,  bearing  the  seal  of  the  court  and  the 
signatures  of  the  seven  justices.  I  read  the  boy's 
name,  written  on  the  imitation  parchment.  It  was 
the  first  time  I  had  ever  known  what  he  called  him- 
self. I  was  amused  by  his  having  had  his  license 
framed. 

"So  you  are  in  Judge  Goodman's  office,  are  you  ?" 
I  said,  rather  ineptly,  to  be  sure,  but  merely  to  have 
something  to  say. 

He  made  the  obvious  reply,  and  spoke  of  Judge 
Goodman's  kindness  to  him.  I  asked  him  how  he 
was  getting  along. 

"Well,"  he  replied,  "rather  slowly,  of  course — 
just  at  first,  you  know.  But  then  I  think  if  I  can 
stick  it  out  a  while — say  five  or  six  years — I'll  be 
all  right." 

I  kept  on  looking  at  the  old  familiar  law  license, 
and  thinking  of  my  own.  I  have  not  seen  it  for 
years.  I  think  my  wife  has  it  somewhere,  in  a  tin 
tube  with  the  diplomas  and  our  marriage  certificate 
and  her  father's  discharge  from  the  army  and  other 
family  charters,  if  it  is  not  lost. 

Then — for  I  felt  that  I  should  say  something — I 
asked  him  how  everybody  was  in  the  capital. 


338  THE   GOLD    BRICK 

"I  don't  get  down  any  more,"  he  said;  "it  costs, 
you  know." 

And  then  he  was  silent,  and  I  did  not  care  to 
look  in  his  eyes.  I  noticed  that  the  black  cravat  he 
had  on  was  very  old,  and  worn  through  in  places. 
Also  that  he  was  actually  out  at  the  elbows,  as  to 
the  right  arm  at  least,  for  there,  in  the  sleeve,  was 
a  ragged  hole  that  showed  the  soiled  lining  of  his 
coat.  Presently  the  boy  said : 

"When  you  go  down,  tell  them  you  saw  me,  won't 
you?" 

Of  course  it  was  presumptuous  in  him,  but  I 
thought  of  those  five  or  six  years.  In  that  time  he 
would  learn — that  and  other  things.  Just  then  Judge 
Goodman  stuck  his  head  out  of  his  private  room. 

I  happened  to  go  to  the  capital  in  May  of  that 
year.  We  were  then  at  war,  you  will  remember.  I 
told  the  man  who  kept  the  cigar  stand  in  the  lobby 
of  the  St.  James  that  I  had  seen  the  boy  in  the  city, 
that  he  was  practising  law  there,  and  wished  to  be 
remembered  to  his  friends.  I  think  I  told  him,  also, 
that  the  boy  was  doing  well,  and  already  making  a 
favorable  impression  upon  many  of  the  older  and 


THAT    BOY  339 

more  prominent  members  of  the  bar.  But  the  man 
shook  his  head  and  responded : 

"Why,  haven't  you  heard?  He's  gone  to  war — 
enlisted  in  the  First  Infantry !" 

I  hid  my  surprise  from  the  man,  and  told  him  I 
had  heard  that,  of  course,  but  that  the  bar  regarded 
his  absence  as  merely  temporary. 

That  summer  I  got  into  the  habit  of  scanning  the 
lists  of  sick  and  disabled  soldiers  who  were  at  Chicka- 
mauga  and  the  other  fever  camps,  or  in  Cuba.  I  was 
especially  likel>  to  do  this  where  the  First  Regiment 
was  concerned.  It  was  a  practice  foolish  in  a  way, 
because  it  took  up  time  in  the  morning,  and  was  only 
a  meaningless  list  of  names,  anyway.  But  then,  we 
were  rather  proud  of  the  First  in  the  city  that  sum- 
mer, for  it  was  our  crack  regiment,  you  know,  and 
my  wife  had  one  or  two  acquaintances  among  the 
young  officers,  who  reflected  a  certain  glory  upon 
her,  and  gave  a  color  to  her  conversation. 

A  friend  of  mine  at  the  capital,  a  lawyer,  often 
sent  me,  two  or  three  times  a  week,  perhaps,  copies 
of  the  local  papers,  and  these  frequently  published 
little  bits  of  personal  gossip  about  boys  from  that 
town  who  had  gone  to  "the  front,"  as  they  put  it. 


340  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

The  country  papers  gave  a  more  personal  tone  to 
their  war  articles  than  did  the  city  papers.  These 
latter  seemed  to  think  that  a  war  is  got  up  espe- 
cially for  the  officers.  Doubtless  they  were  about 
right. 

After  a  while,  the  First  went  to  Cuba.  The  regi- 
ment got  there  too  late  for  active  righting  in  the  op- 
erations about  Santiago,  but  not  too  late  for  duty  in 
the  trenches,  with  their  freshly  upturned  earth,  damp 
and  saturated  with  malaria.  Nor  did  they  get  there 
too  late  for  the  fever.  Many  of  them  contracted  it, 
and  some  died  of  it.  I  used  to  read  the  lists  of  the 
sick  and  dead,  to  see  if  the  names  of  any  of  my 
wife's  acquaintances  in  the  field,  line  or  staff,  were 
among  them. 

Once  in  a  while  I  would  observe  that  some  young 
soldier  had  died  of  something  or  other  and  homesick- 
ness. One  morning  I  happened  upon  a  name  that  im- 
pressed me  as  being  familiar.  After  studying  it  a 
while,  I  finally  recognized  it  as  the  same  name  that 
had  been  upon  the  law  license  that  was  framed  in 
oak  and  hanging  above  the  desk  of  the  office  boy. 
There  was  printed  after  the  name : 

"Pernicious  malaria  and  nostalgia." 


THAT    BOY  341 

In  the  spring  of  the  following  year  (1899)  tne 
bodies  of  several  hundred  soldiers  who  had  died  in 
Cuba  were  brought  home  for  final  interment.  I  hap- 
pened to  be  in  the  capital  again  and  heard  that  there 
was  to  be  a  military  funeral  that  afternoon.  I  had 
some  curiosity  to  see  a  military  funeral,  and  so,  hav- 
ing nothing  else  to  do,  went  to  the  church  where  it 
was  to  be  held.  You  can  imagine  my  surprise  when 
I  was  told  that  it  was  the  funeral  of  the  boy  who  had 
once  tended  the  cigar  stand  in  the  lobby  of  the  St. 
James  and  read  Reeves'  History  of  the  English  Law, 
the  boy  who  had  afterward  gone  to  the  city  to  prac- 
tise law,  and,  later,  enlisted  in  the  First  Infantry  to 
die  in  Cuba.  There  were  not  many  at  the  funeral, 
for,  of  course,  he  was  only  a  private.  There  was  a 
woman  there  in  black,  probably  his  aunt,  or  mother, 
for  she  appeared  to  weep,  and  some  girl.  Out  at  the 
cemetery — Oak  Wood,  where  a  general  is  buried — 
there  were  few  persons  besides  the  clergyman,  and 
the  woman  and  the  girl.  A  local  militia  company 
had  sent  a  firing  squad,  and  it  fired  the  salute  pre- 
scribed for  a  private  over  the  grave,  and  a  bugler 
stood  at  the  head  and  blew  taps,  the  soldier's  good 
night.  Happening  to  have  a  rose  or  two  with  me,  I 


342  THE    GOLD    BRICK 

threw  them  into  the  grave.  The  coffin,  of  course, 
had  a  flag  over  it,  but  that  was  about  all  there  was  of 
the  military  funeral — hardly  enough,  indeed,  to  re- 
war4  one's  curiosity. 

This,  I  believe,  is  all.  The  story  hardly  seems 
worth  the  telling,  now  that  it  is  written,  but  I  fancied 
that  I  detected  one  or  two  coincidences  in  my  hap- 
hazard relations  with  the  boy,  like  my  reading  of 
his  death  in  the  paper,  and  my  happening  to  be  in 
the  capital  on  the  day  of  his  funeral,  and  so  I  set 
them  down. 

I  forgot  to  say  that  I  happened  to  have  his  law 
license  with  me  that  day  at  the  funeral.  After  he 
had  enlisted  in  the  First,  perhaps  I  should  explain,  I 
noticed  it  one  day  in  the  offices  of  Goodman,  Peck, 
Gilmore  and  Eckhart,  where  it  was  evidently  in  the 
way.  So  I  let  it  hang  in  my  office  all  that  summer 
and  all  the  next  winter,  but  in  the  spring  we  needed 
the  wall  space  for  some  new  bookcases,  and  I  took 
it  down.  I  think  the  girl  who  was  at  the  funeral 
that  day,  whoever  she  is,  has  it  now. 

THE  END 


